


Advanced Placement

by briony8969



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Awkward Tension, Evil Grant Ward, F/M, High School, Implied/Referenced Abuse, It's got Fitz's dad in it so yes there is referenced abuse, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2018-12-19 14:03:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 38,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11899281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briony8969/pseuds/briony8969
Summary: To their mutual horror, best friends Leopold Fitz and Jemma Simmons end up scheduled for a study hall during their sophomore year of high school. For two gifted kids used to being in the top levels for everything, this comes as kind of a shock. New friendships lead to new adventures for these two nerds, and they end up having to actually confront their feelings for each other.





	1. Busy Work

Every year since Jemma Simmons had begun primary school, her mum had forced her to pose for a picture on her first day. For the first four years the photo had been in front of their cozy red brick house in Leicester, England. Her fifth grade picture, the first after the move to the U.S., featured a frightened, bespectacled girl in front of a gray suburban house. Every year after that Jemma posed alongside her best friend, Leopold Fitz. The photos captured Jemma’s transformation from a painfully skinny and angular little nerd to a pale but arguably attractive teen. Fitz had gone from a cute little freckled chubby boy to a pasty, curly haired weirdo with unnaturally red lips. This year, the start of their sophomore year, would be the first time he was taller than she was. 

“Oh go on, act like you like each other!” Her mother shouted as the two friends made their way to the porch, each sporting clean new backpacks, loaded down with blank notebooks and binders.

“I can’t believe we have to pick up our schedules at school this year, what a nightmare.” Fitz muttered as they adjusted for the pose.

“Oh I’m sure everything’s fine,” Jemma said with a smile. Her mother signaled for them to stand closer to each other, but Fitz was too distracted to notice. Jemma inched closer to him on her own. 

“Everybody else got theirs weeks ago! I think something went wrong with the research project.” He said.

“Well we’ll find out when we get to school won’t we? Seriously, Fitz, everything’s fine.”

“Of course this piece of shit school wouldn’t fund a polymer lab research project, just because we’ve already passed AP chem. What were we thinking? We flew too close to the sun.” Fitz sighed. Finally Fitz realized that Mrs. Simmons wasn’t going to take the picture unless they were touching each other in some way, so with a disgruntled sigh he put his arm around Simmons’s shoulders. 

“Aww! So precious!” Mrs. Simmons cooed at them.

“JUST TAKE THE PICTURE, MUM!” Jemma yelled.

Fitz lived a few blocks away from Jemma, a fact their parents had discovered five years previously at the only sports bar in town that showed proper football. The scottish family had been delighted to find a nice couple from the UK that were new to the US and just as frustrated by the backwards roads and odd looking electric plugs as they were. Leo and Jemma had ended up in nearly every class together after that, and the weird pasty boy who clung on to his Scottish accent like a lifeline finally had a real friend. In elementary school they sat together on the bus, and for both middle and high school they walked their morning and evening commute side by side, chatting about anything and everything. Mostly science.

Greenville High School (GHS) had been built at the turn of the millennium and looked like a poorly designed shopping mall. Jemma and Fitz stepped through automatic glass sliding doors into a large cube shaped entry hall, scuffed up already by the huge number of children swarming around inside it. Without a locker assignment or a class schedule the only place they could go was the office. The secretary, ten minutes into the school year, was starting her morning right, getting yelled at on the phone by a helicopter mom. When she saw the two slightly confused looking 15 year olds step in she waved them over to the Vice Principal’s office without even hanging up.

Ms. Melinda May recognized Leo and Jemma as soon as they walked through her door. She opened her file drawer before even acknowledging their presence.

“Hello Ms. May.” Jemma said. “We were told that you would have our class schedules?”

“I do.” She said, thumbing through her files. 99.8% of the student body were terrified of Melinda May. There were rumors that she had been kicked out of a school in a really bad part of town for beating the crap out of a kid that gave her attitude. It wasn’t true, but she allowed it and other such rumors to circulate so that she could maintain complete domination over the school. To a bully, Melinda May was a creature of nightmares, an angel of justice wielding in school suspensions and a truly killer “I’m disappointed in you” face. To top students like Fitz and Simmons, Melinda May was the person you ask to fund your robot competition, or to be a chaperone at the National Science Bowl finals. 

Jemma and Fitz ripped open their schedule envelopes like it was Christmas morning. Apart from being placed in different electoral classes (Jemma took speech and debate, Fitz had taken home economics) they had nearly every class together. Including…

“STUDY HALL!?” Fitz spat the word out like a curse.

“I’m sorry kids, we just couldn’t spare any of our staff to run that experimental polymer lab proposal you put together.”

“No but that’s just it, we don’t need a teacher, we put that in the application!” Jemma explained, as though this was all just some clerical error.

“Mm hmm, and believe it or not Principal Coulson ran your proposal, just as you had it, past the school board. Somehow they couldn’t support us putting two fifteen year olds in a room full of dangerous chemicals with no adult supervision.”

Fitz and Jemma rolled their eyes simultaneously at being described as regular fifteen year olds. 

“A study hall is just a waste of time…” Fitz said, rubbing his forehead in exasperation.

“Yes, Ms. May, surely there is a better use of those forty minutes?” Jemma’s voice dripped honey. “Blank class time like that looks bad on college applications…”

“A study hall is just that, a time to study. If you make proper use of it I’m sure it will be a great help to you.” Melinda was trying to keep her voice kind and measured, but there were about 800 other things on her plate right now and these two nerds wanting to take MORE classes was just not the most pressing issue.

“But will we be with the… general kids?” Fitz asked, a note of fear in his voice. He was referring, of course, to the students who didn’t make advanced placement level classes, who didn’t even make scholarship level classes. Ms. May raised an eyebrow. Jemma cringed inwardly. If they had had a chance of getting out of study hall he just lost it. 

“You’re not going to catch ignorance from being in a study hall, Mr. Fitz. Actually you’ll probably learn something. It’ll be nice for you to socialize with more than just the same ten AP kids. I think we’re done here.” 

And with that Vice Principal May shooed Fitz and Simmons back out into the hallway. She gave the mass of students a quick supervisory glance. Four boys in black video game t-shirts that had been laughing obnoxiously, scrambled to hush each other and put their heads down. She nodded in satisfaction and slipped back into the main office.

“This is ridiculous!” Fitz complained, as the two of them sought out their new lockers. “I’ve not taken a study hall in my life!”

“It’s certainly not ideal.” Jemma sighed. “It’s only for a semester though, and they’ll probably be able to put us in another class before that time’s up.”

“Here’s hoping.” Fitz agreed, stuffing the schedule in his back pocket with disgust.

Their study hall happened to be first period, so after a few minutes of seeking out their lockers (they ended up in the same hallway but on different ends), organizing their things and setting up their lock combinations, they made their way to the classroom.

It was mostly empty, even though school was about to start. One boy with bad facial hair and a crooked Redskins hat on was texting in back row, a used Powerade bottle unmistakably full of chewing tobacco spit sticking noticeably out of his bookbag. Fitz looked at Jemma with alarm. She gave him a sympathetic look, and they both went to sit down next to one another in the front row.

“Uh-uh!” The young, dark haired male teacher, who up until that point had been sitting silently at his desk, rapped his fingers on a laminated sheet in front of him. “We got assigned seats in here!” He said. 

“Assigned?” Both of them responded at the same time.

“Are we children?” Fitz hissed in Jemma’s ear as they looked at the seat assignments. 

“Technically? Yes.” Simmons responded. The seats were assigned in alphabetical order, which placed them on opposite sides of the room. After settling into their desks, they glanced at one another, each looking more tense and uncomfortable than they would individually care to admit.

“I don’t recognize you two. You new here?” Their teacher asked. He was very tall, with a deep voice and chiseled features. He had recently shaved, clearly, but still had a darkish shadow on his face which hinted at a lush beard Fitz could only envy. His cotton dress shirt still had the folds on it from where it had been packed into a JC Penny’s bag, and his tie was sloppy, tied with very little care. Fitz thought he looked like an unconventional teacher. Jemma just found him really, incredibly attractive.

“No, we’re not new. We don’t usually take study halls though. We’re quite smart.” Fitz clarified, just as a crowd of study hall students walked into the room. He shut up.

All the kids who walked in checked the seating chart right away, apparently used to not being able to pick a seat. A very pretty girl with crimped dark brown hair, jeans that fit quite well, and a hip black shirt with a mesh top dropped her backpack and flopped into the seat in front of Fitz. She pulled out a tablet and started to type away at it without speaking to anyone around her. An attractive dark skinned African American boy sat down next to Jemma. 

“Morning.” He said with a smile. “I’m Trip. You?”

“Jemma.” She said, smiling a little bit too wide, the way she did when she was nervous.

“You go to Sweet Briar middle school?” He asked.

“Yes! I’m sorry, were we in any classes together?”

“I don’t think so.” Trip said. “I just remember you, is all.” He had a very thick southern drawl which Jemma found quite charming.

“Right, I’m English, that’s probably it. Sort of stands out.” She said.

“Yeah…” Trip smiled again. “That must be it.”

The minute hand on the immense analog clock over the door ticked past the time that class was meant to start for a full five minutes before their teacher stood up.

“Ok everybody, better get started.” Their teacher, now standing, was clearly QUITE tall and well built. He had a sort of languishing air about him, and he put his hands in his pockets before he spoke. Most of the female students, and some male students in the class, perked up. “My name’s Grant Ward, you all can call me Mr. Ward. Anybody who tries to find me on Facebook will be reported to Vice Principal May. This is study hall, you have 40 minutes to complete any classwork you have, or, if you can prove to me you don’t have any homework or you have finished all of it, you can quietly read. NO CELL PHONES. I will allow some talking but only if your voices remain low. Obviously since today is the first day of classes you don’t have any homework, so I’ve gone ahead and printed you out a crossword puzzle. I’ll pass it out after the announcements. Got it?” 

Fitz tried to make eye contact with Jemma but there were too many people in the way. What a load of shit. A crossword puzzle? It was the definition of busywork. 

After the announcements played over the speakers, Ward handed out stacks of puzzles. They looked like they had been photocopied so many times they’d almost faded out of existence.

“To make things interesting!” Mr. Ward said. “The first person to finish the crossword puzzle, accurately, gets cell phone privileges for the first two weeks of class.”

Jemma almost sat up out of her chair to catch Fitz’s eye for that one. They were both quite good at crossword puzzles, over the summers sometimes they would race one another for who could finish first. She couldn’t stretch in any way in which she could make eye contact with him, though.

“I hate these damn things.” Trip whispered. “I mean I’m smart, but I can’t spell for shit.”

“Well, prepare to be annihilated then.” Jemma joked. “A word which, you won’t be surprised to learn, I can actually spell.”

Trip laughed out loud, and Jemma smiled, relieved that he had understood she was joking. Although, to be honest, she had no doubt she would totally annihilate him. 

As soon as Fitz was settled with his crossword puzzle he began to work. Jemma probably had a larger vocabulary and a better grasp of trivia than he had, but there was a mathematical element of crossword puzzles in which he excelled. Just from statistical probability he could piece together short names of Shakespeare characters which Jemma may waste precious minutes trying to recollect. The first question of the puzzle was “what is the capital of Texas?” As he internally scoffed at how simple the puzzle must be for that to be one of the answers, and how chagrined Mr. Ward would be when he triumphantly turned his in, the brunette girl in front of him stood up and walked up to the front of the class.

“Do you have a question about the puzzle?” Mr. Ward asked, leaning forward with an insufferably understanding expression.

“Nope, finished it.” The girl’s voice was deeper than Fitz expected. Sort of raspy. She may be a smoker.

“Wow! That was quick, I’ll check the answers, ok? It’s not just speed, it’s accuracy that matters.” 

“Yeah, uh, I gotcha on that, sir.” She said with a little salute, making her way back to her desk. 

Fitz still had about 15 words left to fill in, but he kept glancing up to see if this girl had really finished so quickly with no errors. 

As Mr. Ward checked the test over, seeming to pore over every word to make doubly sure she hadn’t messed up, Jemma stood up to hand hers in. She thumbed her nose at Fitz as she passed him to rub her victory in, because she was just a big dork like that. Fitz scowled and forced himself to focus on the puzzle again. 

“Well, I’m as stunned as you are everybody, but it looks like, what’s your name again?” Mr. Ward squinted at the top of the crossword puzzle, and back to the girl in front of Fitz.

“Skye.” She answered, sounding almost bored.

“Skye’s got it! Well done Skye.”

She already had her phone/tablet back out and was typing away. Fitz tried to see what she was working on over her shoulder but she was either super far down in a crummy Reddit chain or she was working with some kind of code.

Once he turned his puzzle in (he had been so distracted two other students had beat him to it, to Jemma’s delight) he leaned forward to try to get a better look at what Skye was working on. Skye, feeling a presence staring over her shoulder, sat upright.

“You ok there, buddy?” she asked, giving him a look.

“What? Oh! Yeah. Erm. Just wondering, are you writing code?”

“Oh man, are you Scottish?” Skye lit up in interest. Her demeanor had been somewhat intimidating, but her enthusiastic expression radiated friendliness. Fitz was taken off guard by the question.

“Yes! Glaswegian.” He answered.

“Really? Awesome!”

“Have you been there?” 

“I…” Skye paused, then laughed nervously. “I didn’t actually understand what you said, sorry.”

“Oh, ha! Glaswegian. From Glasgow. But you never said, are you writing code?”

“Sort of. I’m editing some. A friend of mine is trying to design an app and he asked me for some help cleaning it up a bit.”

“That’s great!” Fitz perked up. “What does it do?”

“At the moment, nothing, because my friend’s an idiot and he fucked this code up royally. But it’s supposed to…” 

But Fitz never found out what it was supposed to do because Mr. Grant Ward shushed them from the front of the class. Skye rolled her eyes and turned back to her screen.

Fitz was trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do for the next 20 minutes if he couldn’t talk or look at his phone, when Skye turned around and gestured to her screen.

“sorry, looks like Mr. Ward’s a dick.” was highlighted in red on her text editor. Fitz grinned, and Skye grinned back. She typed again “I’ll tell you more about it later. You code?”

Fitz made a noncommittal gesture. The fact was that he had been working on some simple robotics experiments over the summer, but he’d hit a brick wall with the programming aspect of it. Jemma had been no help at all to him, she found robotics and electronics boring and had spent all summer looking at plants through microscopes.

But if this girl knew enough about computer codes to clean up an app, maybe she could help him out.

Finally, after an insufferable waste of 15 minutes, the bell rang and everyone rushed out to their five minutes of freedom until the next class started. Fitz automatically drifted towards Jemma, already preparing the story he was going to tell about Skye and how she could be a possible asset to their Science Olympiad team, but to his surprise Jemma was chatting with a boy who Fitz didn’t recognize. She was smiling and laughing encouragingly with him in a way that she didn’t do with Fitz, and he realized with a strange sinking feeling in his stomach that she wasn’t going to wait for him. She walked alongside this new kid, continuing to chat as though she didn’t have any other friends in that class at all. Fitz slowed down, allowing them to walk a few feet ahead of him. 

To his dismay this newcomer and Jemma made it all the way to her locker without pausing in the conversation once, only stopping when she had her hand on her lock.

“Oh, Trip, you’d better go if you’re going to get to class on time.” She said, absently twirling the dial.

“Hold up, is that your locker?” Trip asked, staring to laugh. He went to the locker right next to hers. “Cause this one’s mine! I thought you were just following me!” 

“Oh my God, I thought you were following me! I was worried you were going to be late!” Jemma laughed much harder than Ftiz thought the situation called for, but both of them seemed to be tickled by it.

“Well, I’ll see you later, locker buddy.” Trip smiled, gave a cool little wave, and then headed off. Jemma realized with shame that she was grinning like a lunatic and her palms were sweating. With the groan she wiped her forehead.

“Are you sweating?” Fitz asked, appearing out of nowhere and cutting right to the quick of it as he always did.

“Oh my God, Fitz. Yes, I’m just a bit hot apparently.”

“Who’s that?” He asked.

“Antoine Triplett. We went to middle school with him.” 

“I don’t remember him.” Fitz sounded a little odd, but Jemma decided to ignore it.

“I can NOT believe you took so long on that crossword puzzle.” She teased. “It was so easy. New York Times on a Monday easy.” 

“Well it’s not as though you won either. Skye did.”

“That’s right, Skye. What kind of name is Skye?”

“I think it’s kind of nice.” Fitz admitted. It brought to mind a golden blue day in summertime.

“I don’t know how we’re going to survive a full semester of that. What a waste of time.”

“Ugh. TOO RIGHT.” 

It only took a few minutes and the two of them were chatting with each other comfortably the way they always had. But Fitz still had a sinking feeling in his stomach that stayed with him all day, and Jemma kept toying with her hair with more self-consciousness than usual.

Principal Phil Coulson resisted the urge to check his Facebook as he waited in his interior, windowless, soulless office for a meeting with a student. First day of goddamn school and he already had to deal with some kid for behavior. Her file had been a tough read. Another foster home kid, bounced from house to house every year or so, no parental supervision. Of course she was going to act out. Sometimes he felt more like a prison warden than an educator.

Subconsciously Coulson typed www.fa into his browser, which, unlike his computer at home, did not autocomplete. He deleted it in embarrassment. God, if students couldn’t goof off on the internet at school then he certainly couldn’t. 

At that point Mary Sue Poots slunk into his office, glaring at him through eyes obscured by bad makeup and attitude.

“Mary Sue. Good to see you.” He said, meaning it. He was so bored.

“I don’t know why I’m here.” She muttered.

“Well I’ll try to help you out. You’ve been accused of somehow hacking into the school system class list and changing your name.”

“By who?” She asked, sitting down in the plastic chair on the other side of his desk. 

“Ms. May noticed that the name associated with your address changed from ‘Mary Sue Poots’ to Skye… no last name? What are you, like, Beyonce?”

“It was kind of a joke.”

“Not gonna lie, Mary Sue Poots is a funnier name than Skye Blank Space.” 

“I didn’t…” Skye sighed.”Look. My name is as much Skye as it is Mary Sue. It’s seriously not even a big deal. I don’t have a legal name, and I am so sick of getting made fun of for this stupid name that isn’t even mine.”

Phil Coulson had been a principal for long enough to know when a high schooler was fucking with him. He had a unique resistance to the kind of jaded attitude many teachers get when it comes to students; he liked kids. High School sucks. Nobody knows how to be a person yet, but they all assume that everybody else does. Some kids deal with it by being too hard on themselves, some kids lash out at other kids so that their own insecurities won’t get brought up, and some innocents just never figure out how other kids can be so mean. The kids you’ve got to watch for are the ones who know it’s all a game, who know that nobody really knows how to be a person. They play to adult’s egos to suck you into their little world. Skye wasn’t pandering to him. She was almost pitifully earnest for someone with such an obvious, contrived, “outsider” aesthetic.

“The issue is less with you changing your name than it is with you hacking into our student lists.” Phil said, with sympathy.

Skye looked a little taken aback.

“But I didn’t change anything else. I didn’t even look at anything!”

“Yeah, which I appreciate, but you could have. Our IT guys have no idea how you did it.”

“Yeah, that’s because the school system’s IT guys are some idiot who calls himself ‘The Captain’ and told me about his sword collection and some dude named Al who only shows up twice a week.”

Phil laughed before he could stop himself. He fucking hated “The Captain.”

“Ok, regardless, they’re going to have to spend a long time trying to make our system harder to break into, and that’s due to your actions.”

For a moment, Skye shed her “tough girl” act. She looked like a scared little kid.

“Did I just get suspended on the first day of class?” Her new foster family wasn’t going to like that. They already treated her like she was some kind of felon and they’d probably just kick her out rather than figure out how to handle a suspension.

Phil Coulson rapped his fingers on his faux wood paneled desk. 

“No. But you’re going to have to join at least one academic extra-curricular.”

“What?” Skye asked. “Why? Is that a punishment? Can you do that?”

“I’m the principal, I can do what I want. I’ve been looking at your files, and it seems like you aren’t a bad student, you just don’t apply yourself. I think if you got more involved, made some more friends who don’t bother you about silly stuff like your name, I think it might be good for you.”

“But… extra-curriculars cost money.”

“Consider it waived.”

“But…” Skye tried another tactic, “I hate extra-curriculars?” 

“Oh, so you’d rather be suspended? C’mon, you’re a smart kid. Mr. Ward told me you finished a crossword puzzle in his class in record time, like Keira Knightley in that WWII movie.” He froze and squinted his eyes. “Oh crap, what’s that movie called?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The one with Benedict Cumberbatch in it. Shoot. This would be a much cooler example if I could remember the name of the movie.”

“Somehow I doubt that.” Skye deadpanned.

Coulson, again, in spite of himself, laughed. Then it came to him,

“THE IMITATION GAME! That’s it. Good movie! You should check it out.”

“Are you ok?” Skye asked.

“No. But my point is, you’re smart. Join chess club or something. Join a team.”

Skye nodded as she tried to figure out her best options. Her foster family didn’t really like driving her around to too much stuff, but if everything went according to plan she should have her permit in a month or so. Maybe she could make this work.

“Ok. I’ll look into it.” Skye said. “I’ll join something.”

“Good! GHS offers a ton of extra-curriculars. There’s even a philosophy club!”

“I’m not sure that’s for me.” Skye said. “Is there a computer club?”

“I’m going to be honest with you, it’s not super great.”

“Got it. I’ll look at other stuff.” Skye started to pick up her things, looking much less frazzled than she had when she walked into the room. As she went to the office door she turned around. “Thanks for not suspending me, Mr. Coulson.”

“Just don’t do anything stupid Skye. I think you have a lot of potential.” He said.

“Uh… yeah. Sure.” Skye said. The last person who had told her she had potential was three foster homes ago, and they’d ended up getting arrested for selling weed. 

That evening, after finishing her homework, Jemma Simmons bustled around her bedroom. Her Lion King Wallpaper was childish and didn’t match her canary yellow comforter, but whenever she hinted to her father that she update her bedroom decorations his expression would get so sad she had to change the subject. So in a very mild form of protest she had begun to cover every inch of wall with magazine images of actors and actresses she admired. She even had a full size poster of David Tennant on her bedroom door. 

Every weeknight before going to bed, Jemma Simmons would pack her lunch for the next day, lay out her running clothes and school clothes in neat stacks on her dresser, and go to bed with everything ready and organized for the next morning. As she struggled to decide whether to wear a t shirt or a sundress the next day, her phone buzzed. It was Fitz.

“Dad’s pissed.” It said. 

Jemma tensed up. Shutting her dresser abruptly she hopped up onto her bed, giving her phone her full attention.

“Can I call?” She texted back.

“Nope, he’ll hear. Texting’s better.” Ftiz responded. Jemma rubbed her forehead in worry. Neither of them were the kind of kids who texted all that much, so her typed responses usually took a few minutes.

“What’s it about?” She asked.

“The study hall.”

“It’s not your fault. The school wouldn't let us do the project.”

“Yeah but it was my stupid idea. He told me it would never work.” 

“It wasn’t a stupid idea. Tell him if he has a problem to call Ms. May.” 

Three dots on her phone indicated that Fitz was texting back, but they disappeared without a response. Jemma rolled off the bed and started pacing her room. Whenever Fitz’s parents would get into a bad fight he would come over to her house all sad eyed and jittery, and her family would make him cups of tea and pretend everything was fine. Fitz had a harder time getting away when his dad decided to direct his vitriol towards him. One time, when Fitz had spent the night while his parents were fighting, he had whispered to Jemma that sometimes his mom would egg his dad on to try to get him to hit her, so she could use it to get a restraining order. He’d never mentioned it again, but the thought of Fitz in danger like that kept Jemma up at night. Of course, in person they didn’t talk about it unless it was happening. Jemma felt guilty, but she was only fifteen and not a trained therapist, so she did the best she could.

“Ms. May would kick his ass wouldn’t she?” Fitz texted back. Jemma smiled, glad to see a joke.

“She would wring him out” Jemma replied. “The Coward.” 

Fitz, in his room a few blocks away, typed out “Thank you Jemma,” but for reasons he couldn’t fully explain he erased it and just sent back a smiley face. He put the phone down on his bedside table and pulled his covers up to his chin, listening for the click of his father’s door. He’d see Jemma tomorrow. Everything would be all right.


	2. I, Robot Arm

After enough visits to the principal’s office that most of the office staff could recognize them, Fitzsimmons (as May had ever so creatively begun to refer to them) were still no closer to a substantive first period class. The upper level courses were all packed that year, and Fitz and Jemma had tested out of just about everything else the school offered. So until some kids dropped out or switched school districts, Jemma and Fitz were stuck in Study Hall.

“So you two, probably the smartest kids that have ever been to this school…”

“Oh, that’s very kind of you Mr. Mackenzie!” Jemma said with what could only be described as false humility.

“You two science geniuses are spending the first forty minutes of your day killing time in a class that’s pretty much the same as in-school detention?”

It was about 4pm. Most students were on their way home. The band and show choir kids were rehearsing in their separate auditoriums, the cross country and track kids were training, and Jemma and Fitz were sitting across the desk from their Trig teacher Mr. Al MacKenzie. His empty classroom smelled like EXPO marker and axe body spray. Mr. MacKenzie had been cajoled by these two nerds to start a Science Olympiad team the previous year, and they’d actually done well in competition. Mack was almost concerned at how little he had to do to help Fitz and Simmons (and some other kids, Bobbi Morse and Lance Hunter for example although he wasn’t sure if they were using this as an excuse to suck face when he wasn’t looking) succeed. Fitz and Simmons had sauntered into his classroom, on their first day, fresh faced and energetic, with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the competition. They were meeting him this week with a printed out list of the year’s events, and a binder of how they should prepare.

“It’s terrible. That’s why, if you want to help us get into a good college, I really think we should do the robot arm event this year.” Fitz said, pushing forward a packet he had prepared. Jemma audibly groaned.

“Oh, Fitz.” She said. “The robotics challenges are always impossible. We’re great at physical science and chemistry, let’s just stick with what we know!” 

Fitz scowled back at her. Mack imagined that if he ever got married, and he and his beautiful wife stayed together for fifty years, growing comfortable with one another’s quirks and triggers and pet peeves, they might POSSIBLY bicker with a tenth of the intimacy Fitz and Simmons had.

“Yes,” Fitz pointed out, “But I've found someone who can do some coding and I think we might have a chance.”

“Really?” Jemma looked taken aback. “You meet people?” 

“Excuse me?! Of course I meet people!” He protested.

“I’m with you, at least 90% of your life. I know all the people you meet.” Jemma said.

“Skye! In front of me, in study hall!” Fitz sputtered.

“She can write code? Like code that can make a robot arm do what you need it to do?” Mr. MacKenzie asked. “Are you sure she wasn’t just playing with the html of her Tumblr?” 

Jemma looked Fitz directly in the eye and spoke to him in what she must have thought was a comforting tone. “Remember last year when Carrolton High School entered the robot arm competition and they couldn’t get it to move even a little bit? How it just sat there in front of a row or orange dominoes, doing NOTHING? Remember how we laughed at them from the stands? That could SO EASILY be us this year.” Jemma pointed out.

“I can do better than CARROLTON” Fitz scoffed. “And it’s sexist to assume just because she’s a girl named Skye she can’t code a robot arm!” He pointed out to Mr. MacKenzie. “Girls code! And not just Tumblr!”

Mack shrugged, not admitting to anything. He stared at his two little geniuses with some barely repressed pride.

“Ok kids, I’m gonna read through this stuff tonight and check with some other folks whether or not this is gonna be feasible.” He smiled at them. “Good work you guys.” He said.

“Thanks.” They both said at the same time with the same intonation. 

Elsewhere, in a classroom on the other side of the school, Skye sat at her first Anime club meeting. She tried to pay attention to the week’s episode of Fullmetal Alchemist, but it was difficult. A boy wearing homemade floppy dog ears who had introduced himself as “Puppers” and had bad BO was staring at her instead of the screen.

“Hey.” Puppers whispered, soft enough that Skye assumed he must be talking to somebody else. That is, until he tapped her arm with a lingering, uncomfortable touch. “Hey.” He whispered, only slightly louder.

“Oh my God.” Skye hissed, looking at him. “What!?”

“Are you Asian?” He asked, breathing loudly, a sheen of sweat over his face.

“I…” Skye really didn’t want to divulge to this guy named Puppers who was wearing a sexist t-shirt and staring at her like she was a piece of meat that she didn’t actually know who her parents were so she couldn’t be sure she was Asian but she was pretty sure she was, so she just said, “Yeah.” 

“That’s so hot.” He said.

“OK!” Skye stood up, grabbed her backpack, threw up deuces to the rest of the bewildered club, and got the fuck out of there. Apparently anime was going to be a thing she continued to enjoy in the privacy of her own home. The hallways were mostly empty when she walked out, and she decided, as she stormed away in a huff, that she was definitely going to buy a banana nut muffin from the vending machine to stress eat while she waited for her foster brother Hector to pick her up. That is, if he actually showed up. He’d made a big deal about what an inconvenience it was for him to pick her up that morning, and there was a strong chance that he would swing by late on purpose to teach her some kind of petty lesson. 

She crunched her dollar bill into the vending machine for her sweet sweet banana muffin, only to find that the prices had gone up to an exorbitant $1.25.

“Are you KIDDING!?” In a fit of frustration Skye slammed the front of the vending machine with her fist, but only got a sore hand out of it. “FUCK!” She whispered.

“Something get stuck? I hate those things.” A familiar deep voice asked, making Skye startle a little. 

“Oh! Uh, hey Mr. Ward.” Skye said, trying to pull herself together and act like a cool and disaffected teen who definitely hadn’t just injured herself for an Otis Spunkmeyer muffin. “Actually no, I’m just short a quarter.”

“For what?” Ward asked, looking at the options.

“A banana nut muffin.” Skye admitted.

“Jeez, $1.25 for a muffin? We are ROBBING you guys.” Ward casually pulled a quarter out of his pocket.

“No, Mr. Ward, you don’t have to…” but as Skye protested Ward dropped the quarter in the machine and punched in the number. The muffin dropped with a satisfying clunk. 

“No worries.” Ward said, putting his hands in his pockets and smiling gently at her. Skye was kind of embarrassed as she grabbed her snack and gave her teacher a little smile in thanks. “What are you doing in school so late? Miss your bus?” Ward asked.

“No, I uh… I was checking out anime club actually, but it’s not for me.” 

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for an anime kid.” Ward said.

“Well then you’d be surprised to hear how many series I’ve binge watched.” Skye confessed with a laugh, and Ward smiled. 

The two of them stared at one another for a moment. Mr. Ward seemed to be lingering, and Skye wasn't sure where this interaction was heading, but before she could figure it out two rapidly chatting teens turned the corner of the hallway and broke up the awkward silence. Leo Fitz looked up in delight and surprise when he saw who was standing there.

“Skye!” He exclaimed, a rare broad smile lighting up his face. The girl beside him, a pretty brunette who Skye had noticed seemed to be with Fitz most of the time, didn’t look as pleased to see her.

“Fitz!” Skye smiled. “Hey, are you guys anime fans? I didn’t see you in there.”

“Anime? No, I mean, Jemma likes it but I’ve never really gotten into it.” Fitz explained. Jemma scowled at being outed like that. Fitz continued, “Skye, I wanted to talk to you about robot arms.” 

“Say what?” Skye asked. She looked to see what Mr. Ward’s response was to this somewhat bizarre question but she saw that he had retreated back into wherever he had come from, or at least wasn’t in the hall anymore.

“Yeah, the way you juxtaposed that, Fitz, it sounds like you’re describing an anime or something.” Jemma said with a teasing smile. Fitz looked lost.

“Robot arms?” Skye repeated.

“I mean…” Fitz turned a bit red. “I wanted to know if you would be interested in joining Science Olympiad with Jemma and me. It’s fun, there’s competitions and trips, and we’re going to build a robot arm.”

“You want me to build you a cyborg arm?” Skye asked, who, in her defense, had just been watching Fullmetal Alchemist.

“Less exciting than that.” Jemma laughed. “It just has to swing around and knock things over on command.” 

“But it takes some coding, and I know you can do that.” Fitz’s expression was quite sweet and enthusiastic. Skye couldn’t help but smile back. 

“Well, I’ve never done it before, but it sounds cool. Science Olympiad? Seriously?” 

“I mean, it’s not very cool, actually.” Jemma said. “We just do like, challenges and stuff with science and chemistry and compete on weekends.”

Skye took another bite of her muffin and chewed it thoughtfully. 

“Yeah cool I’ll do it.” She shrugged. 

“YES!” Fitz did a little awkward fist pump and grinned at Jemma. “Now we are DEFINITELY doing robotics this year.”

Jemma groaned, but it was mostly an act at that point. She had been resigned to doing a robotics challenge ever since she saw Fitz check out a book on circuits that summer from the library. Herself, she had checked out an Asimov book. Fitz never understood why Jemma read as much fiction as she did, but she was pretty sure that her Asimov had given her a better grasp of the moral complexities of robotics than Fitz had at this point. Not that she was worried Fitz was going to build some kind of android that was designed to be helpful and then would somehow, inevitably, turn evil and attempt to take over the world. They’d be lucky if they could even get it to move.

“Hey guys, is there any way one of you could give me a ride home?” Skye asked, shrugging her backpack back on to her shoulders. “It would save my brother the trip of picking me up.”

“Oh I’m sorry! If we could we would, but we walked to school together.” Jemma said.

“You walked together?” Skye asked. She glanced back and forth at the two of them, standing so comfortably together. “I’m sorry…I didn’t know, are you brother and sister?” 

“God no!” Fitz sputtered.

“Oh Jesus Christ no!” Jemma contradicted with equal vehemence.

“Oh so you’re… dating?” Skye tried again.

“Absolutely not.” Jemma said, adjusting her backpack.

“Nope, no no no no, nope.” Fitz repeated with a dull, manic intensity.

“I’m so sorry!” Skye cringed. “I just, I’m trying to figure out the whole dynamic going on here and I just put my foot right up in my mouth, so, I’ll just shut up.” Skye said.

“We’re just friends! Good friends. We’ve been friends a long time.” Jemma said, laughing in a strange and hyper fashion.

“Yes, nothing weird, just friends.” Fitz said. 

“Cool.” Skye said in a tone that did not sound wholly convinced of the normalcy of the two kids in front of her. “Ok, well, I’ll just wait here for my brother to pick me up. Enjoy your walk!” 

“I’m sorry, I really do wish I could help you!” Jemma said. 

“Yeah, I’ll bring you more information about Science Olympiad tomorrow all right?” Fitz asked, as they began to walk away.

“Sure thing!” Skye called after them. She decided not to mention that she needed to join an extracurricular by request of principal Coulson. The two of them might be more appreciative of her joining the club if it looked like she was doing it totally out of her own scientific interest. Plus it already sounded way better than anime club. If anybody in Science Olympiad started to hit on her based on her presumed ethnicity, she’d fuck them up. 

The night was still warm with residual summer heat as Fitz and Jemma made their way through the familiar sidewalks and streets of their neighborhood. They had fallen into a comfortable silence, as they frequently did on their way home from school when they were planning out their evenings and were tired from interacting socially the rest of the day. Fitz looked up when Jemma giggled out loud to herself.

“What’s funny?” He asked. 

“Oh, just, Skye thinking we were dating. She must have been so embarrassed.”

“Oh, right. Funny.” Fitz glanced over at Jemma. Her long brown hair was falling out of her ponytail as it usually did at the end of the day, and her slim profile was elegant and soft. He was logically aware that Jemma had grown into a very attractive young woman. He still thought of her as the wiry nine year old with absolutely horrific glasses that he had first met, but puberty had been kinder to Jemma than it had been to him. Her frighteningly sharp elbows and hard angles had softened into gentle feminine curves, and even though she suffered from acne and had the kind of laugh that contorted her face rather than lighting it up, he knew that his best friend was quite pretty. There were certain boys in the school who hovered at the edge of Fitz’s awareness, like sharks circling a wounded porpoise, who would definitely have bullied him if they didn’t know he spent a lot of time with a pretty girl. Jemma wasn’t even aware of those assholes, but her existence as his friend awarded Fitz some small kind of primitive respect in their eyes. If he thought about Jemma as more than a friend, ever, if he started to feel in the pit of his stomach some kind of ache for her, he made sure to quash it down. Their status quo was good and comfortable, and any reckless changing of it could prove disastrous.

“Skye seems quite nice actually. Very pretty.” Jemma said.

“She is, isn’t she?” Fitz agreed. 

“That’s not what you’re supposed to say!” Jemma said, laughing. “You’re supposed to say, ‘oh no, I didn’t notice!’” 

“What? Am I? Why?” Fitz replied.

“Well… maybe not. That’s what I thought you’d say though.” Jemma admitted.

The image of the extremely handsome and well muscled Trip emerged in Fitz’s imagination, and worse, the way Jemma lit up when she spoke to him. It was all he could do not to ask Jemma whether she noticed whether he was attractive or not. But even someone with as tentative a grasp on social skills as Fitz could tell that that was a whole bag of worms that he did not care to open. 

Jemma’s house was just a few blocks closer to the school than Fitz’s, so they reached her driveway first. 

“See you tomorrow!” Fitz called out as she opened her gate and made her way up to her door. She smiled and waved before disappearing inside. Fitz lingered for just a minute, savoring the feeling of comfort and normalcy Jemma’s house exuded. After a few deep breaths he worked up the nerve to continue on to his own home. Best case scenario his father was out, worst case he asked him about that stupid bloody study hall again. 

Skye rushed into study hall the next morning right as the bell rang. She avoided any eye contact with Mr. Ward as she slid into her desk and turned to Fitz with a grin.

“So I was on the Science Olympiad website for like 5 hours last night.” She whispered.

“What did you think?” Fitz asked.

Skye was already pulling a folder overstuffed with freshly printed papers out of her backpack.

“Got some ideas.” Skye pushed the folder over to Fitz, who grinned as he began to flip through it. “I found a robot arm you can make out of cardboard and a few circuits, but I think we could make it better.”

“I think I saw that one! It looked sort of flimsy to me.”

“Right, but I think if we make some adjustments it could be totally bomb.”

Jemma, from the other side of the room, could see Fitz and Skye whispering to one another, and tried to stretch to hear what they were saying. 

“Don’t you have any homework?” Trip asked, looking up from a worksheet from one of his other classes.

“Erm, I finished all of it last night.” Jemma confessed. 

“But you know you’ve got this study hall, why don’t you save something easy to do here?” 

“Honestly, I try to, but I start to feel guilty if I’m at home and not working on my homework when it’s right there and I could just go ahead and finish it.”

“So you guilt yourself into doing all your homework when you don’t have to?” Trip asked, incredulous.

“The silliest part is that I feel guilty when I’m here and I’ve nothing to do anyway.” Jemma admitted with a laugh. “It’s an endless, idiotic cycle of guilt and regret.” 

Trip stared at this strange skinny white girl, who was flipping listlessly through an inches thick packet full of graphs and bracketed lists.

“I’m crazy aren’t I?” Jemma asked.

“I didn’t say it.” Trip said with a laugh. “So what are you reading?” 

“Oh it’s the rules for this year’s Science Olympiad competition. Last year we got dinged on our chem lab event and I want to make sure we don’t miss anything this time.”

“There’s a chem lab event?” Trip asked. “Sounds uh…”

“Incredibly nerdy? Why yes!” Jemma said, “Perhaps we haven’t met, my name is Jemma Simmons and I am an incredibly nerdy person.” 

“I was gonna say fun!” Trip corrected, holding up his hands in innocence, “I always do better in labs anyway, I pay attention better when I’m doing stuff with my hands.”

“Oh!” Jemma said, flushing in embarrassment. “You should join! We can have up to 15 people and we only have 8 members right now. And if we do well we get to travel for our competition!”

Trip smiled.

“Any concussions in chem lab?”

“What?”

“That’s why mom won’t let me play football, she saw one Will Smith movie and just goes ahead and shatters all my dreams.”

“Oh, well, to be perfectly honest I messed up an experiment once and blew the lid off of a pan that hit me and gave me a very minor concussion, but that is certainly not an average event. And I promise not to tell your mother about it.”

“Well damn. I’ll just make sure I wear a helmet then.” 

Jemma laughed. 

“I’ll enforce that, you know. Mr. Mack would love it actually, he worries too much about us.”

“Mr. Mack’s the teacher for it? Oh count me in then. That guy rules.”

“You’ve taken his math class?”

“No, but, like, have you seen him? He’s swole as hell! I always wondered how a math teacher got jacked like that!”

“Me too, actually.” Jemma giggled. 

“Hey!” A kid from a few seats back whispered to them. “Would you quiet down, please? I’m trying to focus.”

“Oh Gosh!” Jemma’s hands flew to her mouth. “I’m so sorry!”

Trip displayed no remorse, just rolled his eyes and got back to work. Jemma looked up to see if Mr. Ward had noticed their indiscretion. He seemed to be more interested in whatever Fitz and Skye were talking about. Jemma smiled and tried to read more of the rules handbook, but found it hard to focus.

Lance Hunter was painfully aware of the way that his dark gray polo shirt fell on his body. He had told his mother that Old Navy polo shirts were cut strangely, and he was convinced that the shirt was so long it basically reached his knees. He glanced over at where Bobbi was sitting, a few desks over from him at the first official Science Olympiad meeting of the year, and groaned inwardly when he saw how gorgeous she looked. He looked like some kind of infant whose mother dressed him, she looked like a 1960s super spy. It felt like a personal attack.

“I’m glad to see we have some new students here tonight! Welcome!” Mr. Mack announced from his position at the front of the class. Fitz and Simmons were both in the front row, tapping their pencils impatiently and paying rapt attention. Mack gestured at the two new students, seated some distance away from the rest of the Olympians, off to the side of the classroom. “Would you mind introducing yourselves?”

“Um…” Sky shook her head slowly, eyes begging Mr. Mack for mercy. 

“She doesn’t mind at all, Mr. Mack!” Principal Coulson announced from the doorway, surprising everyone. His plan had been to sneakily stand outside the room and listen to the first meeting as a silent observer, but he could never resist an opportunity for a dramatic entrance. “Go ahead Skye.”

Cringing a little bit, Skye stood up. Her shirt that day was sleeveless, a dress code violation that no one had called her on but Coulson easily could use against her somehow. She played it cool but was aware at every moment of her probationary existence at GHS after hacking into the school system.

“My name is Skye. I’m good with computers and bad at pretty much everything else.” She said. 

“That’s not true!” Fitz protested, drawing stares from everyone else in the room. “Erm…” He looked around for support. Received none. “She’s uh, also quite good at crossword puzzles.” 

“I’m a junior.” Skye finished lamely, and sat back down.

Coulson smiled.

“Anime club didn’t work out for you?” He said directly to her, in front of everyone.

“Not my thing.” Skye said.

“Think you’ll stick around here? It’s a great team, they did well last year!”

“I think so?” Skye replied, wishing she could fall through a hole in the earth. Principal Coulson’s friendly but vaguely threatening attitude was freaking her out. Finally Coulson made his exit, and Mack found himself exhaling nervously. 

“You and Coulson buddies or something?” He asked. 

“God help me.” Skye answered, and the kids in the classroom chuckled. Usually Coulson never paid any attention to the Science Olympiad team. The last time Mack had heard anything from him about it was when he dragged him around to city council meetings to argue about how GHS prepared the youth of today for the STEM field of tomorrow. Mack nodded at Trip, to indicate it was his turn now.

Trip stood up to introduce himself with even more visible reluctance.

“My name’s Antoine Triplett. I’m good at gadgets and electronics and stuff, and I thought this sounded fun. And then Jemma told me she got a concussion in here, and I thought, you know, the girl needs some help.” He grinned at Jemma, who blushed and giggled. 

Mack, out of curiosity, looked over at Fitz. The young man was staring at his shoes, displaying no emotion, although the visible tips of his ears were glowing bright red. Poor kid. Mack turned his attention back to Trip.

“Welcome, Trip, we’re happy to have you. Ok everybody, let’s get down to it.”

Choosing which events in which to participate, and who will take what events, is a strategic aspect of Science Olympiad. Events are scheduled simultaneously and at different places, so kids can’t just be scheduled based on their talents, there was a logistic element as well. Fitz and Skye ended up partnered for Robot Arm and Hovercraft. Jemma was placed with Trip for Science Lab and Microbe Mission, and with Hunter for Disease Detectives. 

“Wait, Mack, Jemma and Fitz aren’t working together for anything!” Bobbi pointed out.

“It’s Mr. MacKenzie Bobbi…” Mack sighed. “But yeah, I see your point.”

“Oh! I’ve got it! They should do ‘Write it, Do it’” Lance suggested. “Write it, Do it” is an event where one student is shown a picture of an object, then writes instructions for how to build it. The other student must follow only their partner’s instructions in an attempt to recreate the object. 

“Wait, Jemma, you’re already up for 3 events, you mind giving up one?” Mack asked.

“I mean, someone else could work with Fitz for ‘Write it, Do it’…” Jemma said.

Everyone in the room gave Fitz and Jemma a meaningful look. 

“Are you kidding me?” Hunter asked. “We’re not going to waste our two smartest, psychically linked competitors.”

“That’s… we’re not psychic…” Fitz protested.

“No but you kinda are.” Skye whispered to him. 

“Ok, Bobbi, it’s you and Lance on Disease Detectives.” Mack said. 

“NO!” Both of them shouted simultaneously. 

Mack, who had been about to write their names on the white board, actually groaned and thumped his head against the wall in despair.

“Tell me you two didn’t break up, again.” He muttered.

“I can’t work on Disease Detectives with someone who doesn’t have a soul, I just won’t do it!” Lance said.

“Hunter’s entire personality is basically a disease so I think its unfair to put him on that particular project…” Bobbi said.

“ENOUGH.” Mack spun around to face the two students. “You two are going to have to work with people you don’t like in real life, and if you insist on dating and breaking up every two weeks this is just how it’s gonna be. Do either of you feel unsafe with the other one?”

The two teens glared at one another, but they both shook their heads no.

“Then congratulations, you’re teammates.” 

The Olympians spent the rest of the meeting bickering over who was working on what project. Eventually it was agreed that Fitz and Simmons would work together on “Write it, Do it,” but Fitz was paired with Skye for both his other events, and Simmons was paired with Trip. Mack wondered for a moment if he should try to give Fitz and Simmons more projects together, but his motivation for doing so, giving the two of them a chance to figure out they liked each other, was too unscientific for him to go through with it. 

Skye had already printed the previous ten years history of prize winning “Robot Arm” and “Hovercraft” machines in the competition, and was piecing together the successes and failures of each winning project. Fitz listened with enthusiasm, pitching ideas as they went along. Trip and Jemma ran refreshers on the basics of Science Lab, an area in which she and Fitz had dominated last year. 

“So, I was thinking, would it be all right if I went over to your house this weekend so we could start planning that cardboard robot arm thing?” Skye said, interrupting Fitz from glancing over at Trip and Jemma.

“Pardon? What, oh, my house?” Fitz stuttered, accidentally knocking one of his binders off of his desk.

“Yeah! I’d offer my house, but, uh, it’s kind of a mess.” Skye’s foster-parents had taken in three siblings between the ages of two and ten who had come from an abusive household. She was glad that the three of them were in a safe place now, but they had maladapted to a bad situation and some of the younger ones didn’t understand why they weren’t with their parents anymore. On top of that, her current foster-mom was more of a strict rule-enforcer than loving caregiver, so her house was something like a war zone at the moment. 

Fitz, while collecting the papers he had dropped, struggled to come up with a lie for why Skye couldn’t come to his house. Before he could come up with anything halfway reasonable he heard himself say:

“Sure, that would be fine.” 

“Ok great! So If I came over on Saturday at like, 1pm, would that work?”

“I’ll ask my parents.” Fitz said, losing the feelings in his limbs.

“Great. Awesome. This’ll be fun!” Skye’s smile was carefree and lovely, transforming her whole demeanor. Fitz nodded over and over again like a spazzy weirdo. 

This was gonna be bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! I've decided to update this fic on Thursday evenings, just so you know. Thank you for reading, commenting, and kudosing. :)


	3. A Necessary McFlurry

Fitz hummed with nervous energy as he walked home from school with Simmons. She prattled on, oblivious to his nerves, telling a long and in-depth story about a kid in her AP History class citing “Google” as a source for Stalin being a Nazi.

“He was just like, ‘google it!’ As though that was an actual acceptable academic defense.” Jemma complained.

“That’s absurd. Also, Jemma, I told Skye she could come over to my house this weekend to work on the robot.” Fitz said.

“Robot ARM, you mean, you aren’t building an actual… wait,” Jemma paused. “Skye’s coming to your house? You think that will be… ok?”

“I sure don’t. I’m panicking about it.”

“Ah! Got it.” Jemma finally noticed the beads of sweat forming on Fitz’s temples, and the way he couldn’t stop fiddling with his backpack straps. “All right, so, what do you think will happen?” She tried to use a calming tone.

“I don’t know.” Fitz said. “I mean, dad will probably be fine, right? He’ll probably put a good face on for Skye so he looks like Mr. Loveable old Scottish Man or something.” The less well you knew Fitz’s family, the more you liked Alistaire Fitz. He practically had a fan club in the neighborhood of people with whom he cheerfully interacted for a few seconds while running errands. It made it all the more difficult for Fitz and his mum to convince anyone of their situation.

“Or he could disapprove of her eyeliner and say something offensive about it.” Jemma suggested.

“Oh Christ. Or he could hit on her.” Fitz said, avoiding eye contact with his friend.

Jemma clammed up. She hadn’t realized that Fitz had picked up on that subtle but unsettling element of most of her interactions with his father.

“Frankly, the best case scenario would be that he puts on the charm and decides to get Skye on his side and they both end the day as best friends making fun of how bad I am at, I don’t know, cutting cardboard or hooking up a circuit or something.” Fitz said, speaking very rapidly as he did when he was nervous.

“That’s a terrible best case scenario, Fitz.” Jemma said with concern. “Would you consider coming over to my house instead?”

“Maybe. Ugh, but that would look so weird, she already thought we were brother and sister, now she asks to come to my house and I take her to yours?”

“Just say your house is getting exterminated or something. Or that your mum wouldn’t let her come over, you can come up with something…”

“No, no I think I’ve got a better idea.” Fitz said, with a strange kind of determination.

On Saturday at 1pm, Hector, Skye’s foster brother, dropped her off with great irritation in front of a small suburban house. Skye struggled to exit the car with the pile of books, materials, and print-outs she had brought with her. Hector drove off almost before she could even shut the door. Fitz’s house was one of the smaller ones on the street, but it had a cute little garden out front and it had a supporting flag for some soccer team (football club?) hanging in the window. Leopold Fitz was sitting on the stoop of his own home, backpack on, foot tapping on the pavement.

“Hello Skye!” He said, standing up abruptly and rushing towards her with a weird fake smile on his face. “So, my parents are busy this afternoon, so I was hoping we could go to the library instead? They have workrooms and…” he noticed how many items Skye was juggling at the same time. “Can I help you with some of that?”

“Sure!” Skye laughed and tried to readjust, accidentally dropping about 50 pages of printed out pamphlets as she did so. “Shit, sorry!”

As they both leaned down to pick some things up, Skye heard the scraping sound of the front door opening. An older, heavy set man with graying hair stepped out into the doorway, taking in the scene in front of him.

“Well, who’s this then?” He asked, voice a deep Scottish brogue.

“Hi dad, don’t worry, we’re just off to the library now…” Fitz said, speaking in an unrecognizable high pitched tone.

“What for? And sorry miss, my son didn’t introduce you, I’m Alistair Fitz.” Mr. Fitz spat out the word ‘son’ like there was some skepticism about the paternity.

“Oh, hi Mr. Fitz! I’m Skye.” Skye responded, standing upright again with her pile of resources and her best “please like me!” smile.

“Skye? That your real name?” Mr. Fitz scoffed.

“Nope.” Skye replied, and offered no further information. She smiled. Fitz cringed.

“Oh then! What are you doing here, ‘Skye’?”

“She’s working with me in the Science Olympiad competition.” Fitz attempted to explain. “We’re making a robot arm…” Fitz’s father worked in engineering. In fact, his job was to diagnose and fix robotics machinery that went wrong for a large manufacturing firm in the area. Deep down, Fitz had hoped that working on a robotics project might be something his father thought would be interesting. He’d known not to say it out loud, even to Jemma, because articulating that hope would kill it.

“Ugh, not that little competition that you and Simmons do? Here, ‘Skye’-girl, let me tell you a secret. It’s not real science. They let you play around in a big sandbox and then they give you all medals and tell you you’ve done a great job when you’ve built absolute shite.”

Fitz bit his tongue and looked at the ground. Skye glanced back and forth between Fitz and his dad and couldn’t imagine how such a rude man could produce such a kind and thoughtful child. She hugged all of her papers and printouts a little bit tighter

“Oh, I don’t know.” She said. “I kinda like sandboxes. Anyway, we’re just about to go to the library to work on it…”

“What for?! We’ve got a whole house here for you to arse about with your little project” Mr. Fitz opened the door wide. “You’re welcome to it!”

Skye looked over at Fitz, who was still staring grimly at the ground.

“I think we’ll be all right at the library.” She said.

“Look at all the stuff you’re carrying.” Mr. Fitz said. “The library is a 20 minute walk. Just come inside, it’s fine.”

“We’d better.” Fitz said, softly, giving Skye an apologetic look. With resignation he helped Skye with some of the things she was carrying and they stepped over the shoddily built threshold of Fitz’s house.

The Fitz residence was a comfortable suburban dwelling, with a lot of dark woods and beige carpets. The first room one encountered upon entering was the hall, decorated with many pictures of Fitz at various ages with his mother, smiling in a series of posed fluorescent settings in mall photography studios. To the left was a sitting room, with a sun faded couch and many clearly heirloom furniture items with little lace doilies hanging halfway off of them. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust. A row of potted plants were sat on the floor in front of a large window, placed so more for their desperate need for light rather than for aesthetic sense. The soil had, over the years, spilled a bit out of their pots, dirtying the carpet around them in little circles of grime.

Fitz quickly led Skye back into the living room, which had less dust, more bags and receipts sitting around, and the same mid seventies dark wood and carpet color scheme. A large wrap-around couch faced a tv-set. Fitz’s father stepped over into what was clearly *his seat* and collapsed into it, changing the channel to a news show where pundits screamed at one another.

The kitchen table served as their workspace. It was covered in a kind of protective plastic wrapper, and their binders stuck to it, making a terrible plasticky ripping noise whenever they needed to pick it up. For a few hours Fitz and Skye were able to work together with no real problems. Every once in a while the sound of Mr. Fitz adjusting his seat or changing the channel would make Fitz tense up, eyes flashing over to where his father sat. Skye would give him a reassuring smile and try to get them back on track.

After running through what they considered to be the best option for a robot arm project, Skye pulled out a sheet of paper for a shopping list.

“So, what kind of funding does our team have anyway? Because, like, if we’re going to get points for the most low tech but simple robot arm we can make on a budget than cool, but if the other teams are going to be buying like, Wall-E shit.. sorry, stuff, then we’re just going to get creamed in competition.” Skye asked.

“The school won’t fund anything too extravagant, but if we can write a persuasive essay about why we need a certain item I’ve seen them be flexible.”

“God I hate writing essays. Can I just hack into the budget and give us a little boost?” Skye joked.

“Well…” Mr. Fitz stirred from his position on the other side of the room. Leo’s face fell. “If you’re just going to spend 800 dollars on a ‘build from the box’ robot I haven’t a single idea what you’re supposed to be learning from that.”

“It’s not quite like that…” Fitz tried to protest, but his father cut him off.

“I’ll tell you what it’s like. It’s a waste of time and money. In all seriousness, Skye, you’re new to the club right?”

“I uh, just joined this year. I’m pretty excited about it though.”

“Right. Did my son talk you into it?”

“Not exactly…”

“The more fool, you.” He said with a laugh.

“You know that Fitz is like the smartest kid in school, right?” Skye asked, and Fitz’s eyes widened in alarm. He shook his head ‘no’, warning her not to get his dad going.

“If my son is the smartest lad at that school then I weep, I literally weep for the next generation.” Mr. Fitz laughed. “What do the rest of you do, just sit around all day with your thumbs up your asses?”

Skye looked at Fitz in disbelief. What universe was this guy in if he thought his son was some kind of idiot?

“Did he tell you about the time he tried to stick a fork in an electrical socket? Real smart move that was, nearly got electrocuted to death.” Mr. Fitz did a little impression of his son, making grunting noises like he was trying to sound mentally challenged. That was enough for Skye, she started to collect her things. She wanted to spare Fitz any more of what was obviously an uncomfortable situation. Before she could pack everything up, though, the front door opened. A new, vulnerable expression flashed across Fitz’s face for a brief moment.

“Leopold, love? You here?” A woman with a melodic Scottish accent called out from the entryway.

“Yes mum!” Fitz said.

“Hear that?” Alistaire whispered to Skye, like they were best of friends. “What kind of 15 year old boy let’s his mum call him ‘love’? And he’s got a guest” Mr. Fitz said, almost sneered.  
“Someone’s here!” Fitz warned his mum.

“Jemma?” Mrs. Fitz askred brightly, “Is Jemma here? Well you haven’t been here in ages!” But as she said that she walked into the living room/dining area space, and saw that instead of Fitz’s familiar friend there was a dark haired girl with more makeup than Jemma ever wore and a ripped black t-shirt. “Oh! I’m sorry, who’s this?” Mrs. Fitz asked, putting down a large bag of groceries on the counter.

“She says she’s called Skye, but Lord knows her real name.” Mr. Fitz said.

Mrs. Fitz was a short, large woman in her late forties or early fifties. She was dressed in khakis and one of those hideous brightly patterned blouses that chain stores always pitch to plus sized women as making them look “free spirited” rather than actually designing a blouse that fits. When her husband spoke, her face clouded and she made eye contact with her son, who sighed.

“Excuse my husband, he’s just trying to be funny, God help us.” Mrs. Fitz said. “Skye? Was it?”

“I’m on the Science Olympiad team with Fitz this year.” Skye said.

“That’s lovely!” Mrs. Fitz exclaimed.

“I tried to warn her!” Mr. Fitz said. “She looks like a sharp girl, she’s wasting her time!”

“I’ll help you put the groceries away, mum.” Fitz said, standing up.

“Christ son, she can handle it can’t she? You’ve got a young lady over!” Mr. Fitz barked.

“That’s very kind of you to offer, Leopold.” Mrs. Fitz said, gently. “But I’ve got it quite handled here.” She brushed her hair back and made her way over to where her husband was sitting. Fitz tensed again, holding a packet of papers in his hand but paying full attention to where his mother was speaking to his father. “Alistaire, would you mind speaking with me for a moment in the other room?”

“I do actually, I’m watching telly. What are you whinging about now?”

Skye leaned forward and whispered to Fitz.

“You know, I think I’m gonna just head out.”

“I’m so sorry.” Fitz whispered back.

“What’s that?” Mr. Fitz stood up. “What’re you two whispering about over there? Am I scaring you off or something?”

“Please.” Mrs. Fitz begged her husband.

“Oh, you don’t scare me at all, Mr. Fitz.” Skye said with a perky smile. “I think we’ve just got everything done that we can today.”

“I’ll walk her out.” Fitz said, and his father actually rolled his eyes at that.

“Lord it’s like I have a daughter sometimes.” Mr. Fitz groaned.

“STOP IT.” Mrs. Fitz said. “WE HAVE GUESTS.”

Skye had gathered all her things at that point, and she and Fitz were on their way to the door just as Mrs. Fitz raised her voice to her husband. They both rushed out just as Mr. Fitz started to rail back at his wife, using some language that would have got Fitz or Skye written up if they said it too loudly in their high school hallways. Fitz slammed the door after them as they rushed out.

“Skye, I am so sorry.” He said. He was not crying exactly, but his eyes, wide and expressive at the best of times, were shining pretty excessively. “This is… really embarrassing.”

“Fitz.” Skye took Fitz’s shoulders and gazed directly into his eyes in absolute calm. “Don’t be sorry. Your dad is a massive dick. That’s not your fault. I’m sorry I pushed my way into your house.”

Fitz cringed.

“Don’t be sorry. You didn’t know. It’s my fault I shouldn’t have let you come.” He pulled away from Skye and rubbed the back of his neck anxiously.

“You can’t go back in there right now.” Skye said.

“I usually walk around the block a few times. Or go to Jemma’s.”

“I saw a McDonald’s a few blocks up. Want a McFlurry?”

Fitz laughed.

“I don’t have any money on me.”

“I can scrape up two bucks for some stuff on the dollar menu.” Skye elbowed him playfully. “Here.” She ditched her packet of papers in an overgrown hedge in front of Fitz’s house. “Lets go!”

Once Fitz and Skye were settled at McDonalds, Fitz eating an M&M McFlurry and Skye digging into some chicken nuggets (the secret of great nuggets is all to do with the sauce, Skye told him. The nuggets are all basically the same) he started to settle down a bit.

“I’m sorry. I should have canceled or something. I knew that dad was going to be awful.” Fitz sighed, playing with his oddly shaped square plastic spoon,

“No dude, it’s fine. I’ve seen fucking worse.”

Fitz raised an eyebrow.

Skye took a sip of her Sprite before answering.

“So yeah like, I’ve moved around a bunch of foster homes, and let me tell you, I have seen some shit.”

“Oh.” Fitz had had no idea. He figured he hadn’t seen Skye before that year because he only ever hung out with the same, maybe two dozen gifted students at his school. “I’m sorry.”

“Bullies like that don’t scare me.” Skye shrugged. “I had one foster dad, back when I was like, eight, who used to smash plates on the wall when he got mad to sort of emphasize his points.”

“Dad’s done that before. It was one of mum’s wineglasses, she got them from her aunt who died so he knew how important it was to her. He says he just gets so mad he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he never breaks any shit that HE likes.”

“Shit. Fitz, you’ve got to get out of that house.” Skye looked really upset, which made Fitz squirm. “My old foster dad?” Skye said, “He’s in jail now.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I can just get up and go can I?” Fitz said. “Mum’s got no money and the house and car and all are in his name. Plus there’s immigration stuff.”

“Fuck.” Skye had seen that situation before as well. “I’m sorry Fitz. If you ever need to stay with me you totally can, it’s a mess at this house, this family is totally just in it for the tax credit so they probably won’t even notice you’re there.”

“God, is the foster care system really that bad?” Fitz asked. As bad as things got at his house sometimes, thoughts of being taken away from his mother and put in foster care always scared him away from reporting it.

“Not always. The last house I was in, I totally would have stayed with them.” Skye dunked another chicken nugget into her “sweet and sour” sauce and avoided Fitz’s eye contact.

“What happened?” He asked.

Skye could still remember that conversation. Her foster mom had called her into the dining room, and Skye had been positive that she was going to say that they had started the process of adopting her. But instead she’d been told that their lives had gotten really busy and hectic, and they’d decided to move to Arizona to be closer to their grown son, and they thought it would be better for Skye if she stay in the same area and school system so as much as they thought she was a really great, gifted girl she was going to have to find somewhere else to stay for the rest of high school. They still sent her a card every Christmas, with a picture of them and their stupid, tanned son posing next to a javelina or something with smug happy smiles and not even a single glimmer of regret in their eyes.

“I wasn’t a priority for them.” Skye muttered. Fitz nodded slowly.

“Well, you’re great, and they sound like assholes.” He said.

Skye laughed. She’d never heard the Klonoski’s described as assholes before, everybody would talk about how lucky she was that they had deigned to let her reside in their home as long as she did.

“Dude, Fitz, YOU’RE great, and your dad is a huge fucking prick.”

Fitz shrugged. “He told me once that he’d never hit me, because he didn’t think it was right to hit little girls.” Fitz said.

“Well this little girl is about to shove a boot right up his ass.” Skye growled.

Fitz laughed, eating another bite of his ice cream. As he did so, he noticed a man walk into the McDonalds that he recognized.

“Shit, is that Mr. Ward?” He asked, ducking down in his seat like he was guilty of something.

“What?” Skye looked over at the entrance. “Oh yeah, that is him. Dude, why are you hiding?”

“I don’t know! It’s weird isn’t it?”

“We’re allowed to be at McDonald’s, it’s not like you snuck a McFlurry into study hall.” Skye said, teasing him just a little bit.

“Ugh. I hate seeing teachers in real life.” Fitz muttered.

But as much as Fitz tried to avoid his eye contact Mr. Ward had already spotted them. He smiled and actually left his spot in line to go over to their booth. Fitz slid as low as he possibly could into his seat.

“Well hello Leo and Skye!” Mr. Ward said. “How are you two doing?”

“We’re not on a date.” Fitz said, a perfectly normal thing that a perfectly normal human would say.

“Well I guess I know where I stand, then.” Skye joked, smiling up at Mr. Ward. “Excuse me while I go cry into my pillow.”

“Sorry to hear that.” Mr. Ward laughed. “Didn’t mean to interrupt, just thought I’d say hi.”

“Hi.” Skye said.

“Hello.” Fitz said, glumly.

“Guess I’ll just leave you two to your ‘not date.’” Mr. Ward said with an uncomfortable smile. “I’m going to go, uh, buy some McNuggets.”

“Ooh, what sauce?” Skye asked. “And remember, a lot banks on your answer.”

“…ketchup?” Mr. Ward hazarded.

“Ew, gross, get out of my sight. You disgust me.” Skye scoffed.

“Really? That warranted that strong of a response?”

“I’d have stronger words for you but McNuggets with ketchup is its own punishment.” Skye said.

Mr. Ward looked sort of stunned. “Uh, ok, bye I guess?”

“Goodbye!” Skye waved dismissively and checked her phone. Mr. Ward wandered away, clearly stunned. Fitz leaned forward.

“I can’t believe you just spoke to a teacher like that!” He whispered.

“What’s he going to do, fail me out of study hall because he has horrible taste in condiments? Oh… shit.”

“What?” Fitz said.

“Ugh my foster-brother just texted that he forgot he had to work tonight and he can’t pick me up.” She sighed. “And there’s no way I’m asking your dad for a ride…”

“Don’t ask Mr. Ward either.” Fitz said, hurriedly, pulling out his own phone. “I’ve got an idea.”

Jemma got Fitz’s text during family game night, while bickering amicably with her father about whether or not he could use the word “waner” in his bananagrams board.

“It’s not a word.” Jemma insisted.

“Yes it is! Wane is a verb! The moon wanes!” Her father protested.

“So you commonly go outside and remark, ‘that moons a waner?’ No, you don’t, because that’s ridiculous and it’s not a word.” Jemma said.

Mrs. Simmons was laughing so hard at that that she didn’t even notice Jemma take out her phone. Her father, still trying to hold on to his bananagrams victory, did.

“Hold on love, you can’t look it up on your phone! We have the scrabble dictionary!”

“No I got a text, sorry. And I don’t need to look up the word because it doesn’t exist.”

“So says you!” Her father laughed, but even he was giving up hope. Jemma read her text from Fitz and worried line creased her forehead. Her father noticed, and leaned forward worriedly. “You all right Jem?”

“Yes. Oh, I’m sorry.” Jemma looked up with a worried expression. “Is it all right if Fitz comes over? With a friend?”

“Fitz!” Jemma’s mother beamed. “Of course, he’s always welcome.”

Jemma’s dad looked a bit more skeptical.

“But what about family game night?” He asked.

“Oh we’ve already played 3 games of bananagrams, and Fitz is family isn’t he?” Mrs. Simmons pointed out, starting to clean up. “None of which you won, by the way, I’m on Jemma’s side about ‘waner.’ But Fitz is bringing another friend? Someone from Science Olympiad?”

“Yes. She’s called Skye. We actually met her in study hall.”

Her dad’s face lit up at that.

“See, I told you study hall would be good for you. Meeting all sorts of new people!” Mr. Simmons was the sort of man who always assumed the best about everyone. Jemma and her mother actively had to stop him from picking up hitchhikers, and more than once they had entertained down on their luck strangers who her father had sort of collected as he floated pleasantly through the world. Other people may have had their homes burglarized, or been betrayed or threatened by the people they were trying to help, but something about Mr. Simmons’s world philosophy seemed to protect him from all bad things.

Jemma’s phone buzzed again.

“Fitz is wondering if they could stay the night.” Jemma asked.

“Mmmm.” Mr. Simmon’s expression clouded just a little bit. “Aren’t you two getting a bit old for sleepovers?”

“Oh hush, it’s fine.” Mrs. Simmons said, glancing around her living room to see what small level of tidying up she could complete before her guests came. “It’s just Fitz.” She said.

Mrs. Simmons had come to the conclusion that Fitz was gay about three years ago. She was absolutely delighted that he was friends with her daughter, and wanted to make sure he felt absolutely welcome in her home for when things inevitably blew up at his house.

“Well.” Mr. Simmons gave in. He had noticed from time to time Fitz’s expression while talking to or about Jemma, and he was not as convinced as his wife about Fitz’s sexuality. “Just make sure that you’re ready to go to church in the morning.”

Jemma bit her cheek. She loved her dad more than she loved most things in the world, but he was a deeply religious man, and she had several years ago concluded that all religion was nonsense. It could be beautiful and help people and all that, but every hour she spent listening to a man in robes talk about how a higher power didn’t want her to have sex was becoming less and less tolerable.

“Of course.” She responded. “Don’t worry.”

Ten minutes later Skye walked into Jemma’s bustling, slightly messy house like she was stepping out of a spaceship onto an utterly alien landscape. Compared to the suffocating tension in Fitz’s house, this living room was an oasis of love and functionality.

Jemma welcomed Fitz and Skye into her home with a wide smile and small wave. She was embarrassed about the large number of science fiction and fantasy books on their bookshelf so she stood in front of it.

“Hello!” Jemma said. “Welcome! Hi Fitz.”

“Hey Jemma.” Fitz said, walking into the house comfortably and taking a seat on the couch like he lived there. He sniffed the air. “Do I smell brownies?”

“Just making some treats for you all!” Jemma’s mum called from the kitchen. She walked out, wearing a freaking apron and a bright smile. She looked very much like her daughter.

“You never make brownies when it’s just me!” Fitz pointed out, sort of offended.

“That’s because you’re old news, Fitz.” Mrs. Simmons laughed. “Skye’s new! Nice to meet you Skye, I’ll have some nice warm brownies ready in a few minutes.” She walked over with a slightly flour covered hand extended. Skye shook it nervously. “Jemma didn’t tell me, your parents are all right with you staying at a co-ed sleepover right? Because we have Fitz sleep over here all the time but you know, some parents might worry.”

“Oh, I texted my foster-parents and they said it was fine.” Skye lied. She had texted her foster-parents, but they hadn’t got back to her, so she was taking their silence as an implicit yes.

“Great!” Mrs. Simmons said. She glanced over at Fitz, raising an eyebrow. “You know, theres a bowl in there with some leftover brownie batter, if anybody would be interested in licking it.”

Fitz was already up off the couch, bolting to the kitchen.

“Mum!” Jemma complained, over on the other side of the room, starting to run after him. “You gave him a head start!”

Mrs. Simmons just laughed. Skye looked around the house for a minute, over the sounds of Jemma and Fitz scuffling over a spatula. Junk mail was scattered on a few tables, some of Jemma’s not quite finished homework was sitting out on the counter, and there were glasses everywhere that had been abandoned by their owners. The furniture was mismatched, clearly bought at various bargain prices over the span of decades, but it was all comfortable looking and lived-in. Skye wanted nothing more than to curl up on that couch and stay here forever.

That night, after each of them had eaten about 4 brownies each and Jemma had made Skye and Fitz watch two episodes of classic Doctor Who, the three of them lay side by side like peas in a pod in sleeping bags, staring straight up in the pitch darkness of Jemma’s living room. Her parents door was slightly ajar at the end of the hallway, so they knew that they weren’t completely unsupervised, but Mr. And Mrs. Simmons never minded a bit of whispering and laughing when their daughter had friends over.

Jemma, after a long rant catching her friends up on about 60 years of Doctor Who mythology, snored softly from her spot at the end of the row. Fitz smiled at the sound, painfully aware of the fact that he was lying on the floor with two undeniably beautiful women. As unattractive as Jemma’s nighttime get up was, her mouth brace, old kickball t-shirt, and basketball shorts did not exactly match pornography’s expectations of a teen girl sleepover, her female form was still barely visible under her sleeping bag. She and Skye were inches away from him. It would be incredibly simple, for someone who was not encumbered by Fitz’s paralyzing shyness, to scoot over by a few inches and jokingly spoon them. To Fitz’s great dismay, he realized that he was getting a really badly timed hard-on. He flipped to his side to avoid it becoming somehow visible through his sleeping bag, and tried to covertly tuck it into the waistband of his boxers. Skye, mistaking Fitz’s shift in position as an invitation to chat, flipped over to face him.

“How’re you doing?” She asked.

“Fine.” Fitz managed to squeak.

“Jemma’s family is pretty awesome.” Skye whispered.

Fitz nodded, grateful that the room was so dark she wouldn’t be able to make out how red his face was.

“They’re just like, so functional and reasonable and happy… how does that even happen?”

“I honestly have no idea.” Fitz admitted.

Skye flipped back over to her back, to Fitz’s relief. Her phone buzzed, lighting the room up with a weird blue glow, and she wiggled down to where it was charging in the wall to pick it up.

“That your parents?” Fitz had worried all night that her foster parents were going to text her back upset that she was staying out all night. He knew how important it was for foster kids to stay on good behavior. Any screw-up could get them kicked out.

Skye didn’t respond for a minute, but her expression didn’t look as worried as he thought it should for an angry parents text.

“Hey, Fitz, I’ve gotta head out. Could you tell Skye’s parents thanks for me in the morning? Tell them my brother picked me up at like 5AM or something.” Skye whispered, standing up and putting her phone in her pocket. She had refused any offer the Simmon’s made of lending her PJs and had slept in her t-shirt and jeans. She went over to put on her shoes.

“Where are you going?” Fitz asked, trying to sit up and hide any incriminating angle of his pelvic region.

“Don’t worry.” Fitz could see Skye’s white and winning smile through the half darkness. “It’s all good, I’ve just got to head out. Thanks for everything Fitz!” Skye waved cheerfully, then went over to the door. “Shit, could you lock the door after me? Cool thanks!” Skye whispered, slipping out and shutting the door gently behind her.

Fitz found himself alone in the room, the only sound the gentle snores of both Simmons and, from the back room, her father. After nervously sneaking after Skye and locking the door, he crawled back to his sleeping bag and lay down, playing through everything that had happened through the course of the day. Sleep evaded him.


	4. Clotheslined

Jemma Simmons waited by her locker for Fitz to show up. Usually they would walk together after lunch to their next class, but Skye had called him over to her table that day to talk about some robot coding thing and Jemma had been left on her own for the full 40 minutes. She’d finished her lunch quickly without anybody to talk to, and then, facing the reality of sitting at a lunch table in silence for the next twenty minutes, had pulled out her Chem text for a bit of extra study. Fitz had told her he would meet up with her, but she’d lost track of him and now found herself standing by her locker with no real reason for being there, getting bumped by swarms of fellow students. She tried to make herself as small as possible, feeling like an impediment.

To her great relief Lance Hunter wandered out of the crowd and slouched over to her. 

“Hunter! How are you, good to see you!” She said with more enthusiasm than his appearance really called for.

“Bobbi wants me to tell you that you’re invited to her party this weekend. Also Fitz. Where’s Fitz?” Hunter looked around, surprised to find Jemma on her own.

“He’s probably talking with Skye.” Jemma said, and before Hunter could ask any follow up questions she cut him off with one of her own, “Won’t that be a bit awkward for you, as you broke up this summer?” Emotional sensitivity was not one of Jemma Simmon’s strong points. People assumed because of her sweet face and disposition that she would be better about things like human feelings and emotion, but really, if your grandma died, you’d be better off if Fitz wrote the sympathy card.

“I’m not invited, she made that very clear. She just asked me to tell you that you’re invited because she knows I see you next period.” Hunter said. 

“That…" Jemma paused, letting that sink in. "That seems a bit mad!” she said. 

“That’s Bobbi.” Hunter shrugged. “Of course its fine, she just wants me to know how much fun you’ll be having while I’m exiled and outcast and alone.” 

“Doesn’t sound like all that much fun.” Trip said, coming out of nowhere and starting to unlock his locker. “Of course, I don’t know what we’re talking about.”

“Bobbi’s having a party. You’re invited too.” Hunter said. “She said everybody on Science Olympiad can come except me.”

Trip raised an eyebrow.

“A party? Cool. Is this like a ‘my parents are out of town and my cousin is buying us booze’ party or a birthday party with cake and ice cream and games?”

“Somewhere between those two extremes.” Jemma said. She’d been to a few of Bobbi’s parties in the past, and the most shenanigans that came up would be a bonfire and an escalating game of capture the flag. “Think you’ll be able to go?”

Trip shrugged noncommitally.

“Never partied with nerds before. What’s it like?”

“Very underwhelming.” Hunter said. 

“Well, I’ve only ever ‘partied,’ and I use the term loosely, with nerds.” Jemma said. “And I think it’s quite fun.” 

“Well, I almost trust you.” Trip laughed. He looked around. “Where’s Fitz?”

“Everyone keeps asking me that! I’m not his mum!” Simmons complained at just a bit too loud a volume. It was getting dangerously close to the time she was meant to be in class, and still no Fitz.

“Got it, not Fitz’s mom.” Trip said. “Won’t make that mistake again.” 

“Sorry.” Jemma adjusted her backpack straps and glared at the clock. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it. I’m just a bit snippy today, I suppose.”

She walked to her next class by herself, in embarrassment. Fitz was already at his desk, phone out, texting someone.

“Fitz! Where were you? I waited for you at the lockers!” Jemma asked, sliding into her seat next to him. They were in their AP Calculus class with all the senior kids they didn’t know. 

Fitz looked up, distracted.

“What? Oh, sorry. Look! Skye’s managed to write a code for the IDE that’s better than anything we’ve seen online.”

“That’s… great.” Jemma said, knowing that technically as his teammate and friend she should really be excited about this cool project, but somehow she didn’t really feel it. 

Fitz’s phone beeped, and he laughed at something Skye had texted him. Jemma would never in a million years bring her phone to class. It was against the rules, and she focused better without any distractions. She’d known Fitz brought his phone with him to class, but until this point he really hadn’t had anybody to text with it. She took a deep breath and tried to focus on her own business. Then she remembered.

“Oh! Fitz, Bobbi’s having a party this weekend.”

“Really? Is it her birthday?” Fitz asked.

“No… from what I can tell I think she’s throwing a party just so she can not invite Hunter to it.”

“Sounds about right.” Fitz noted. “We going to go?” He asked the question with a bored tone, not even looking up from his phone.

“Well, I’m planning on going.” Simmons said. “You can do what you want.” 

Fitz finally looked up, confused.

“Do you not want me to go?” He asked.

“No, you can do what you want!”

“Because it sort of sounded like you didn’t want me to go.” 

“Oh my God, Fitz. We’re not attached at the hip. You can make your own decisions.”

“See, that really sounds like you don’t want me to go!” 

But at that point their teacher started talking and both Fitz and Simmons, a little discomfited, changed their focus to their math lesson. 

The night of Bobbi’s party, Jemma stood in front of the mirror in her bathroom, holding three different shades of her mother’s lipstick and trying to work up the nerve to put one of them on. The one she was leaning towards was a very bright red, like, Ariel’s hair red, but every time she uncapped it and put it up to her face she panicked and put it back down. 'Who am I kidding? I’m not Taylor Swift. What’s wrong with me?' She thought. 

She backed up and checked out her outfit again. She was wearing a dark brown t-shirt and a black mini skirt, with her hair pulled up into a messy top knot which had taken her about a half hour and 4 youtube videos to accomplish with modest success. She rarely wore makeup, which meant that she had no real skill in its application, but her strategy of just putting on a LOT of eyeliner had worked out fairly well, she thought. All she needed now, according to the internet, was a dramatic lip. She took a deep breath and picked up her mother’s bright red lipstick. 

Skye rolled up in front of Fitz’s house in her foster-brother’s old sedan and parked in the street. She texted him from outside.

“GUESS WHO’S GOT HER LEARNER’S PERMIT, BITCH.” She typed, with drama.

Fitz’s response to the text was to exit his front door with an exasperated expression. Skye made a number of celebratory gestures to show her excitement at being able to drive.

“You realize,” Fitz said as he slumped into the passenger’s seat, “You aren’t supposed to drive on your own with a learner’s permit, and that driving me to this party is technically illegal?” 

“Sshh Fitz, Shh.” Skye said, pulling out into the street with only a little hesitation. “Don’t steal my joy.” 

“Oh, I won’t.” Fitz said. “The police will, almost definitely.” 

Skye laughed. 

“So did you ever figure out if we’re picking up Simmons or not?” 

Fitz sighed and glanced at his phone.

“She finally texted me back. She said she’s already at the party and we can meet her there.” 

“Ok, cool.” Skye glanced over to see if Fitz was grumpy about it, and his knotted forehead told her all she needed to know. She decided not to kick that beehive. 

The number of cars lining the cul-de-sac made the location of Bobbi’s house fairly obviouse. She pulled in a little bit too far into one of her neighbor’s yards, enough to fuck up their lawn ever so slightly, and she and Fitz approached the large, upper-middle class house.

Fitz spotted Jemma right away, she was sitting next to the as yet unlit fire pit, laughing her beautiful laugh at something that Trip had said. She looked stunning, although he was surprised by how different she looked with so much makeup on.

“Why do girls wear so much makeup…” Fitz began, but Skye cut him off with an aggressive finger thrust right into his face. 

“Don’t. Stop it right there with that nerd bullshit. You know the difference between a girl that boys get crushes on and a girl who’s just ‘one of the guys’? It’s makeup.” 

“We’re not that stupid, are we?” Fitz asked, unable to take his eyes off of Jemma.

“Oh man, boys are so much more stupid than you even know, Fitz. If a girl has any kind of waist to hip ratio and passable makeup knowledge she can get a high school dude to pretty much kill for her.” 

Fitz’s lack of romantic experience meant that he didn’t really have a convincing counterargument, so he let Skye have the last word on that one. Jemma really did look gorgeous tonight, and for some reason that was making it difficult for him to walk up and sit next to her. Skye wandered off on her own to get a soda or something, leaving Fitz awkwardly standing next to the back deck entrance of the party, somewhat removed from the fire pit area and his fellow teens. His anxiety was starting to really hit, and he looked around for some sort of family pet that he could use as a distraction. To his surprise he laid eyes on the one person who shouldn’t be at this party.

“Hey, what’s up Fitz?” Lance Hunter said, munching on a bag of Fritos. 

“Literally nothing. What are you doing here? I thought Bobbi threw this party just to spite you?” 

“Apparently her mom found out that I was the only one not invited and made her extend to me a pity invite.” 

“And you accepted?” Fitz said.

“Of course I accepted! If Bobbi didn’t want to invite me because I’d be awkward then I absolutely have a responsibility to be as awkward as possible.”

“I’m not sure I follow that logic.” Fitz said.

“Someday you’ll fall in love Fitz, and then you’ll understand.” Hunter said patronizingly, patting Fitz on the back. 

Fitz glanced back over at Jemma, who was still enthralled by something that Trip was saying. 

“Right. Yeah.” Fitz replied.

“HEY! Who wants to play capture the flag!?” Bobbi called out from over by the snack table, holding up a red and blue bandana.

“YES!” Lance shouted, running over to where she was standing. Science Olympiad was not where Lance Hunter excelled, but the boy could play some pointless high school games. Give him a kickball and he was unstoppable. Give him a flag to hide and protect, and he was like James Bond. 

Bobbi’s house was perfect for capture the flag. She had a large front yard with a lot of trees and cars parked in the driveway for cover, and her backyard was full of imposing hedges and lawn furnishings. Her deck area in the backyard served as the “jail” for the blue team, and the driveway in front of her garage was the “jail” for the reds. 

For the first time all night, Fitz and Jemma made eye contact. They both rolled their eyes at the same time. Neither of them were what you could call “athletic,” and their strategies for capture the flag leaned towards “get put in jail as soon as possible and avoid all the stress.” 

“This’ll be fun, huh?” Skye said, re-emerging from the snack table with a 7-up and a one of those chalky yet addictive heavily frosted grocery store sugar cookies. 

Bobbi was bickering with Lance Hunter about who would be team captains. 

“You can’t be a captain, it’s my party and I decide who gets to be captains.”

“YOU’RE A TYRANT.” Hunter whined.

“IT’S MY HOUSE.” Bobby snapped back.

“Can I be captain?” Trip asked, standing up from his seat next to Jemma. 

“I’ll be the other one!” Skye offered. “Let the new kids be the captains!” 

“Fine.” Bobbi said with a little smirk. “At least it’s not Hunter.” 

“Fine.” Hunter said. “I’m on Trip’s team.”

“Hell no, I get to pick teams, that’s why I’m the captain!” Trip said. 

“Oh, we don’t usually pick teams…” Fitz protested, knowing the inevitability of him being chosen last.

“Well it’s the new kids this time, let’s do something a little different!” Trip said with a smile. “I pick Jemma.”

“Seriously? She’s terrible!” Fitz said, before thinking. 

Jemma stood up from her spot by the fire pit, flipped Fitz off dramatically with both hands, and made her way over to Trip’s side. Everybody laughed. Fitz flushed red.

“Ok, I pick next.” Skye laughed. “I pick Bobbi.” 

“What?” Fitz whispered, in desperation. “No! Give me a break!” 

“Sorry Fitz,” Skye looked really apologetic. “But she’s like 5’10” and shredded.” 

Fitz squirmed as everyone else at the party got picked before he did. Hunter ended up on Tripp’s team anyway, and, dead last, Fitz ended up on Skye’s team. 

Red and Blue teams huddled with their respective leaders.

“Fitz, I’m putting you in charge of jail duty. If anybody comes around trying to bail people out, I need you to grab them and throw them in the slammer.” Skye said.

“Fine.” Fitz said, distractred, glancing over at the other team. Knowing his role, he didn’t pay any attention to the rest of the strategizing that was going on. He didn’t even pay attention to where they were going to hide their flag. 

When things started Fitz found himself standing the back yard, still warm and humid from the bitter end of summer heat, alone except for the humming of the insects in Bobbi’s impressive shrubberies. After about fifteen minutes of no action in the backyard, only hearing a bit of rustling and shrieking from the front of the house found himself watching the reflections of the sunset in the pink and gold glowing clouds. 

He was thinking about the way that Jemma’s lipstick really emphasized her lovely skin, when he heard the unmistakable sound rustling from the shrubberies to his left. Someone was clearly trying to sneak through to their side. Fitz squinted to see who it was, and recognized a pale and bony elbow immediately.

“Oh no you bloody don’t.” Fitz grumbled, jogging over to the bushes and tagging Jemma pretty easily.

“God damn it, Fitz!” Jemma muttered, trying to save her top knot from getting too tangled up in the hedge’s branches as she pulled herself out of the bushes

“To jail with you!” Fitz muttered, pushing her over to the little cement patio area that served as their very open and accessible jail space. “Didn’t you red bastards try that ‘hedge’ strategy last time, with no success?” 

“I was on the blue team with you last time, remember?” Jemma said. “God, it’s really prickly in there.” She rubbed her arms, which were covered in little pink scratches. “I hate this game.”

“Really? Cause you got picked bloody FIRST.”

“Well.” Jemma shrugged, “Maybe Trip just has more confidence in me than you do, Fitz.” 

“You just got caught 30 seconds into the game!” Fitz protested. Another rustling sound distracted him, however. “Oh not again…” He made his way back over to the hedges, to try to tag whoever was sneaking in that way. The bushes were rustling quite a bit, but he couldn’t quite see through to who it was. Suddenly, from behind him, he heard the pounding of running feet and a little giggle yell from Jemma. He turned to find Trip had infiltrated the jail and had grabbed Jemma’s shoulders with both hands, unmistakably freeing her.

“Got you!” Trip shouted. 

“NO!” Fitz started to run towards them to tag Jemma again, but his weird awkward run couldn’t gain on the two of them, shrieking with laughter and running back to their home base. Then, from out of the bushes, Hunter emerged with amazing speed and agility, running straight towards one of the trees in the back left corner of the lawn. Bobbi emerged from behind the side of her house, running like she was on the last leg of a sprint, right towards her ex-boyfriend. Fitz, not sure which direction he should go, tried to cut him off from another direction. But as he started to sprint forwards, a flash of pain struck him suddenly and an impressively strong force flung him forcibly to the ground. He had run full speed into Mrs. Morse’s backyard clothesline. 

The line had cut pretty deeply into the corner of his mouth, and had shot his whole body backwards like an arrow released from a bow. He found himself on his back, in a surprising amount of pain, staring at the lovely pink and gold clouds he’d been admiring moments before.

“FUCK.” He exclaimed.

“Fitz!” Jemma was the first person at his side. “Are you all right? Oh! You’re bleeding!” But as she expressed concern she had a strange look on her face, like she was trying to hold back laughter.

“OW!” He said. 

“Holy shit Fitz, I’ve never seen anything like that.” Hunter said, kneeling next to to Fitz and trying to help him up. “It was like you were a cartoon or something.” 

“Wile E. Coyote!” Jemma said. “Like, your whole body was just like…” She pantomimed a sort of jarring impact. Fitz, eyes watering with the stinging pain of his injury, couldn’t really appreciate her impression. 

“Hold on, let’s take a look at that mouth.” Trip said, leaning next to Fitz. 

“I’m fine.” Fitz said, realizing that every single person at the party was now standing around him and staring. “Everything’s fine.” He sat up and felt at the corner of his mouth, which had a pretty deep cut, and was throbbing badly. 

As the sun went down, and the party went back to being fun and chatty and raucous, Fitz sat alone in his folding chair by the bonfire, holding a bag of frozen Peas wrapped in a lavender soccer sock to the side of his swollen, still bleeding mouth. 

Jemma came over to check on him a few times, but his sullen, monosyllabic answers eventually drove her away. She and some of the other kids at the party ended up watching Trip and Hunter have a pull up competition in one of the Bobbi’s backyard trees. Trip was doing pretty well. Fitz, who had never completed a single pull up in his life, attempted to distance himself even further from the group.

He stared at the fire, considering toasting a marshmallow even though he knew his mouth would hurt too much to actually eat it. Skye sat over by the snack table, face glowing blue in the semi darkness by the light of her cell phone. She had been texting someone all night, smiling to herself from time to time when she checked her responses. Eventually she looked up from her phone and over at Fitz, who had been unintentionally staring at her for some time. He looked back at the fire, trying to play it cool.

Skye smiled and rose to her feet with poise, picking up a sparkler from one of the boxes set out on the snack table. She took it over to one of the tiki torches that Mr. Morse had obligingly lit for the partiers as the sun set, and carefully held its tip up to the orange base of the flame until it exploded into white sparks. Laughing, Skye swung the sparkler around, making shapes with it and writing out her name like a little kid. Fitz smiled, and Jemma passed him the box of sparklers, still laughing and playing with hers. Attempting to light his in the bonfire, half of it lit up at once, surprising both of them, and they laughed as he tried to write in the air with the wand, leaving little red patterns imprinted in their retinas for a few seconds. 

“I haven’t played with these in years.” Skye said, sitting down next to Fitz, just holding hers up and watching it burn.

“I don’t think I ever have.” Fitz said.

“Really? What do you do on the Fourth of July?” 

“Why would we celebrate treason?” Fitz said, emphasizing his accent just a little bit. 

“Oh pfft, right, whatever.” 

A shriek from over on the other side of the lawn drew both their attention. Bobbi had started a silly string fight and all the kids on the other side of the lawn were laughing hysterically. Trip used his height advantage to spray Jemma right in the face with a ton of pink silly string, and she cackled hysterically about it, ineffectually trying to get him back. Fitz stared at the fun from a distance, putting the bag of peas back up to his face with a miserable expression. Skye glanced down at her phone again, and then back to Fitz.

“Hey, so, I know it’s a little bit early for this, but uh… you wouldn’t happen to have a homecoming date, would you?” She asked the question casually, like she was asking about some homework she had forgotten or something. Fitz turned to Skye with an expression of utter confusion, fumbling with the bag of peas.

“What?” He asked. 

“I mean, Homecoming’s in about a month, and I was wondering if you were going with anybody.” Skye repeated. 

“Of course not.” Fitz said, taking the bag down and crossing his arms nervously

“Ok cool! Want to go?” Skye asked. 

“With you?” Fitz clarified.

“Yes. Fitz, I am asking you to be my date to homecoming, I thought I was being pretty clear about it.”

“All right… all right… yeah. Um. Sure. I’ll go with you. As friends right?” 

“Totally.” Skye smiled. She extended a hand to shake. 

From the other side of the field, still laughing and trying to get silly string out of her hair, Jemma looked over to Fitz. Even though he’d been acting like kind of a dick to her all night she’d been checking on him intermittently, that gash on his cheek didn’t look fun at all. She saw him and Skye shaking hands, like they had just agreed on some stock market deal or something. Whatever was going on, she felt a strange urge to break it up, or be in on it in some way, so, still brushing off silly string, she made her way over to them. 

“Hey guys!” She said. “What’re you up to?”

“NOTHING.” Fitz said, a bit too loudly, retracting his hands and looking around guiltily like a five year old caught stealing an Oreo.

“Fun party, right?” Jemma said. “I don’t know if I’ve had so much fun at one of Bobbi’s parties!” 

“She and Hunter should break up more often!” Skye joked, and the girls laughed. Fitz glanced over at his new homecoming date with a feeling of rising, guttural panic. 

“I’m going to go eat a cupcake.” He said, and fled the scene. He avoided Jemma for the rest of the night. 

That night, after dropping Fitz off at his house (he blushed and waved in a very cute way when he reached the door), Skye picked up her phone one last time.

“So guess who’s got a Homecoming date?” She texted.

“You didn’t.” Mr. Grant Ward responded from his efficiency apartment on the other side of town. “Please tell me you didn’t just ask somebody to homecoming because I told you chaperoning it would be boring?” He smiled and sat down on his IKEA couch, beer in hand.

“I’ll be there to spice things up for you.” Skye bit her cheek, hoping she wasn’t saying anything too risky. She always told herself before she texted Mr. Ward that she was going to be super cool and mature, and then she’d get all giggly and stupid and totally obvious and send him absolute nonsense. 

“Who’s the lucky guy?” He texted back.

“Fitz.” 

“Poor Fitz, you’re gonna break his heart.” Mr. Ward responded. “I’ll bet he worships you.” 

“No!” Skye texted with multiple angry face emojis. She couldn’t stand the thought of hurting Fitz. She glanced over at the dark windows of his quiet, miserable home to see if he was staring out the window, pining or anything. “No we’re just going as friends, he’s a good guy.” 

“Yeah right, I’ll bet he’s in his room right now fantasizing about you.” 

“Shut up!” Skye gasped. Ward had left her open for a very easy response about HIM sitting in his bedroom fantasizing about her, and she wasn’t sure if she should take it. She was probably supposed to take it, probably confident sexy women in their thirties who were really mature about this stuff would respond in some sort of cutting but effortlessly sexy way. Maybe they’d even send him a picture or something. As much as Mr. Ward complimented her for being mature for her age, Skye didn’t feel all that mature, blushing and sweating in her car outside of Fitz’s house. She put her phone down and decided to drive home before responding. It would be totally typical to get pulled over by a cop and lose her permit the first week she had it for texting and driving. The whole rest of her way home she smiled goofily, thinking about Mr. Ward, sitting at home waiting for her to text him back. 

Grant Ward had finished his beer and turned his television on to ESPN, which was showing a rerun of the day’s episode of Sports Center. From time to time he glanced at his phone, balancing on the arm of his couch, to see if Skye had responded. But to her credit she didn’t. Ward couldn’t help but smile to himself. He hadn’t met a teenage girl yet that he couldn’t charm, but this girl seemed like something special. He turned the tv off, set his phone to silent, and decided to go to bed. If she did text him, he’d respond the next day. Make her wait for it.


	5. Teenage Nonsense

Sunday afternoons, Fitz’s dad would go play in his workplace’s “just for fun” kickball team. Afterwards the team would usually go out to dinner and drinks and Mr. Fitz would stagger home around nine pm, tired and slightly drunk. Sometimes that meant he would happily kiss Fitz on the cheek and tell him his son he wasn’t so bad, and sometimes that meant he would come home blitzed and furious and take it out on his wife and his son. 

If their lifestyle had taught them anything though, Fitz and his mum knew not to waste a good thing. They took advantage of the few hours of peace they had on Sundays, with Alistaire out. On this Sunday, Fitz sat on the floor of his living room across from his mum, folding warm fresh laundry with an old movie playing in the background.

“Oh I just love Billy Wilder.” Fitz’s mum said, laughing at a particularly clever line spoken by an actor in black and white.

“Mm.” Fitz said, concentrating on folding a fitted sheet. Sometimes, when he did it just right, his mother would comment about how good he was at folding those sheets, and how happy she was that she had such a good son who was good at folding fitted sheets and who would help her out with the laundry. He’d scoff and act like she was being embarrassing, but both of them knew that he lived for those comments. 

“So, apart from tearing your face up, how did you like Bobbi’s party? You came in pretty late last night.” His mother asked, sorting through the socks and trying to find a match.

“It was fine.” Fitz said, finally getting the sheet to flatten into a perfect rectangle and laying it carefully in its pile. 

“You think Skye enjoyed herself? I know you were worried that she might find it a bit dull.”

Fitz scrambled through the pile of laundry trying to find another fitted sheet to fold, making a bit of a mess. His mum quietly sorted the pile out as he started the process of finding the corners of the sheet. 

“I think Skye had fun. She was really good at capture the flag. Everybody tried to tackle her but she got around them.” Fitz spoke fast and nervously for stating such uncontroversial facts. 

“I think she’s probably glad to have some regular, well-behaved friends.” Mrs. Fitz suggested. “You said she comes from a pretty tough background, I’ll bet spending time with healthy young people is good for her.”

Fitz, try as he might, could not get the seamed corners of the fitted sheets to straighten out the way he needed them to. He shook the sheet out a bit violently in frustration,.

“You all right?” His mother asked. “What did that sheet ever do to you?” 

Fitz took a quick intake of breath and looked at his mother.

“Skye asked me to homecoming.” He said, quickly, like ripping off a bandaid. His mother’s eyes widened.

“What? You said no, surely?” She asked.

“What? No. I mean yes, I said yes.” 

“Oh! It’s just…” Mrs. Fitz wanted to say what about Jemma? But she knew enough about her son to be cautious on that subject. “I didn’t think you were interested in going to dances.” 

“I’m not.” Fitz said. “That’s to say, I’ve never been to one, but they’ve always sounded pretty shite.” 

“But you’re going to go? With Skye?” She asked. 

“Well…” Fitz looked so nervous and confused that Mrs. Fitz just wanted to give her son a hug, but she continued to fold and stack towels calmly, to give him some time to work out his feelings. “I mean it would be silly not to go right? I like Skye. And we’re just going as friends… so…”

“She’s a very pretty girl.” Mrs. Fitz said.

“I know! So why the hell’s she talking to me, then?” Fitz finally exclaimed. 

“Oh hush. She’s clever, and clever girls can tell that you’re a great catch.” She said. Fitz made a disgusted face. “She’s lucky to go with you. I always knew you’d get snatched up.” 

“Please kill me.” Fitz said, lying down on his back with a groan.

“You don’t seem all that excited about going to homecoming with a beautiful girl, to be honest.” Mrs. Fitz teased. “I’m sure some lads would be jumping for joy right now.”

“It’s just so stressful.” Fitz said. He sat straight up, an expression of horror on his face. “Oh my god. I’m going to have to rent a tux aren’t I?” 

“Maybe just a suit, you’re not getting married or anything.” Mrs. Fitz laughed, but her face brightened as her son’s fell. “Ooh Leopold, you’re going to be so handsome! And make sure she tells you what color her dress is so you can buy her a corsage to match! And you’ll get a little bouttoniere!”

“I don’t know what those words mean!” Fitz whimpered.

“Is Jemma going to go? Do you think?” She asked.

“No, she hates dances.” Fitz said with no hesitation. He wasn’t an idiot, he’d seen the way she looked at Trip, but crushes or no, Jemma had given him enough lengthy tirades about the stupidity of high school dances to leave no doubt about her feelings. “She’s going to think I’m a twat for even going.” 

Mrs. Fitz smiled. They were just about done with the laundry at that point.

Fitz made another attempt at his fitted sheet.

“Can we just move back to Scotland where they don’t have such a thing as homecoming and I could just live in peace?” Fitz complained.

“Oh my poor son.” Mrs. Fitz teased. “His beautiful best friend is going to make fun of him for being asked to a dance by his other beautiful girl friend. Just too many beautiful lasses fighting over my darling boy.” 

“Please kill me.” Fitz said, for a second time, but his mother just laughed and picked up her stacks of towels to put away. 

“You’re good at folding those sheets by the way. You’re such a help.” She said. 

“It’s nothing.” Fitz muttered, helping his mother take the laundry basket back into the other room. She pulled him in to her and gave him a big kiss on the head, and for the first time in a while he just went ahead and let her do it. 

Mrs. Rattan’s AP Chemistry classroom was set up with black tables with stone tops, the kind that 30 high schoolers could spill acid on and the school still wouldn’t have to shill out for a replacement. Jemma placed her hand on the cool desk from time to time, letting the warmth of her palm create a little condensation hand print that would evaporate seconds after she lifted it up. Normally at this time she would be chatting with Fitz, but he hadn’t shown up to class yet. The past few weeks he’d behaved like a jittery squirrel, arriving to their classes too late to chat and then disappearing between them on various made up pretenses. She put her full arm down on the table an then pulled it back to see the impression it made. Chloe Rosenkuhn, a girl who went to parties with alcohol at them and hosted a moderately successful youtube makeup tutorial channel, stared at Jemma in horror.

“Are you doing that on purpose? Gross.” She whispered.

Jemma flushed in shame and put her arm down. Of course it was gross, she was gross, it must look like she was just sweating all over her desk. She glanced up at the clock above the door of the classroom, and, just as he’d been doing for weeks, Fitz jogged into the room just as the bell rang. He took his seat next to Jemma without making eye contact. The new normal.

Mrs. Rattan, a lovely Indian woman who always wrote “Chem Is Try!” On the board on test days, stood up from behind her desk with a large stack of papers and a hardened expression. 

“As some of you will NOT be happy to hear, I have your pop quizzes from last week.” She said, slowly making her way around the class and laying them face down on everyone’s desks. Most students squirmed uncomfortably in their seats when they saw their grades, but Jemma glanced down at her 100% with little surprise.

Fitz, holding a cool 80% quiz in his hands, gestured toward Jemma’s grade in disbelief. 

“What the hell!?” He whispered as Mrs. Rattan started to bicker with a kid who thought his grade was unfair. “How!? That quiz was impossible!” 

Jemma shrugged.

“Well, if you actually did the readings then it wasn’t so bad.”

“No! Bullshit! I did the reading, and it was still impossible.”

Fitz had a point. Mrs. Rattan had a tendency of assigning multiple chapters of reading with no guidance on what aspects of the chapter were the most important, and then writing pop quizzes based off facts chosen at random from within the 50 page assignment. One of her questions had been from a description below one of the charts, out of 14 possible charts to choose from within the reading. Her goal was ostensibly to see who actually did the reading, but in practice it was a better test of who had a photographic memory.

“I read it through a few times.” Jemma admitted. It wasn’t like she had anything better to do with her evenings. Fitz hadn’t been texting her at all for the past few weeks, and she’d had little to no distraction from really deep diving into her homework. Even she had to admit it was getting a bit unhealthy.

Fitz pulled his seat in in agitation, but the leg of his chair got tangled on a tote bag sitting near Jemma’s feet. He tried to disentangle himself, and accidentally pulled out a full skein of yarn from her bag.

“What’s this?” He whispered to Jemma, holding up the deep maroon angora yarn like it was a dead animal.

“Put that back! That’s expensive!” Jemma snatched the skein out of his hand and tried to shove it back into her tote bag. 

“You’re knitting now? What are you, 90 years old?” Fitz asked, in a teasing but disbelieving tone.

“I’m knitting Tripp some fingerless gloves.” Jemma said, readjusting in her seat and trying to look studious.

“Since when can you knit? And it’s not even cold out yet!” Fitz protested.

“I taught myself, from youtube videos.” Jemma said. In the past three weeks she’d mastered knitting, purling, cording, and circular needles. Trip was the slightly confused owner of a matching tassled hat and scarf set and he didn’t even know the gloves were coming to him. 

“You know, you could be putting that energy into Science Olympiad.” Fitz whispered.

Jemma almost gasped at the insult.

“I’ve finished every project!” She hissed. “I’ve met with my small groups twice a week since we started, with one notable exception!” 

Fitz’s face fell, but before he could provide her with an explanation for why he had completely ghosted on their “Write It, Do It” partner project, arguably an event that really requires both partners to be present for effective practice, Mrs. Rattan started to speak again.

“All right, almost all of you missed one of the easiest questions on this, which was, ‘why do protons repel protons’? Ms. Morse, would you like to tell the class your answer?”

Bobbi blushed.

“I uh, didn’t know.” She said.

“She wrote ‘Because God willed it.’” Mrs. Rattan said with a laugh. “She’s funny. Didn’t get her any points, but it made me chuckle.” 

For the rest of class Fitz and Jemma sat side by side, participating in the lesson like usual. But whenever Jemma tried to make eye contact with Fitz she noticed him flinch away and ignore it. 

After school that day, after straining her backpack’s zipper to the absolute limit to zip up the huge stack of texts that she needed to carry home, only to stand up and realize she had left one out, Jemma growled audibly. 

“You ok?” Fitz asked, wandering over from his locker.

“Oh I just can’t fit my fucking Economics book in the my fucking backpack.” Jemma growled, angrily unzipping her bag and digging roughly around for any old crumpled papers that she could toss out. She had a hard time finding any non-essential ones that she could put aside to make room.

“I can carry something for you, if you want.” Fitz suggested.

Jemma looked up at him quizzically.

“Are you walking home with me?” She asked. 

“Of course!”

“It’s been a few weeks.” She said, standing up, a little embarrassed at how much aggression she had just vented towards her overworked bag.

“Has it?” Fitz asked, again. He hadn't realized. 

“I thought you were mad at me.” Jemma admitted.

“What? No! For… for what?” Fitz asked, taking her book from her and starting to walk alongside her towards their usual exit. Most of the kids who needed to run for the buses had already left, and the halls were mostly empty apart from them and the usual trash and debris left by a couple thousand youths.

“I haven’t the faintest idea!” Jemma admitted, relieved that Fitz was chatting with her again. She’d been running through her actions over the past few weeks trying to figure out what she had done that had pissed him off. She adjusted her heavy bag on her shoulders. “I thought maybe… I thought maybe you didn’t like Trip.” She admitted, heart pounding from finally saying it out loud. She glanced at her friend.

“What?” Fitz scoffed in his most infuriating smug scoffing tone. “That’s absolutely ridiculous. Trip’s great, really. I thought he was just going to glide along in Science Olympiad but he’s been putting in the work.” 

“I know!” Jemma smiled with pride. “He’s been a really valuable addition to the team hasn’t he?” 

“He has! Why would I hate him?” Fitz asked. 

Jemma sighed. Thoughts had occurred to her for why Fitz wouldn’t like her relationship with Trip, but she had done her best to quash them. If either of them developed a crush on the other one, it meant disaster for their extremely solid and healthy friendship. She had missed her friend though. The hours she’d put into knitting had been valuable, but, she had to admit, pretty lonely.

“I don’t know.” Jemma sighed. “I mean, obviously apart from you being a huge racist asshole…” She teased.

“HOW…. HOW!? HOW DARE YOU?!” Fitz sputtered, but Jemma was laughing too hard for him to take offense for very long.

For a while their walk home was just like the good old days. Fitz felt tension melt out of him as they retraced familiar steps and familiar conversations, side by side. Talking to Jemma was like returning from a long and stressful trip in the wilderness and taking a warm bath in your home. 

“I was thinking, remember when we were little and we watched the old cartoon version of the Hobbit like a hundred times until we had it memorized?” Jemma asked.

“Oh my God, I haven’t thought about that in years.” Fitz laughed. “Is that the one with the ‘Where there’s a whip, there’s a way’ song?”

“Yes! Isn’t it horrifying!?” Jemma laughed her delightful musical laugh. “I was just thinking, we should rent that and watch it on Homecoming weekend.”

All of the tension that Fitz had lost came back at once, all but freezing him in his tracks. For the past several years Fitz and Jemma had used school dance nights as movie nights, with Jemma providing all sorts of junk food snacks and Fitz coming over and watching something fun. Last year they’d watched a marathon of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It had been a blast. 

“Oh, that sounds great!” Fitz said.

“Wonderful! I’ll look up and see if the library still has it. The DVD’s probably all scratched up, it must be ancient…” 

“But I can’t.” Fitz finally said. 

Jemma glanced at him in surprise. 

“Oh! You have plans?”

“I’m uh…” Fitz shifted Jemma’s Economics textbook back and forth between his hands. “I’m actually going to go to Homecoming this year.”

Jemma slowed to a stop, and looked at Fitz like he had just started speaking in Mandarin.

“What!?” She asked.

“Yeah, um, Skye asked me to go and I said I would, so…”

“SKYE ASKED YOU!?”

“Well yes, you can repeat it loudly and disbelievingly if you want, but it still happened…”

Jemma felt strange, breathless, like someone had taken a large sledgehammer and whacked her in the stomach with it. When Fitz saw the expression on her face he lost all pretense of sarcasm, eyes growing soft and terribly sad.

“Jemma? Are you all right? I’m sorry!” 

“No!” Jemma found to her incredible amazement that her eyes were filling with tears. “Of course it’s fine! You can go to homecoming with whoever you want! I like Skye a lot!” Jemma truly believed everything she was saying but tears were streaming down her cheeks with no regard to her logical understanding of the situation. “Everything is absolutely fine, you have every right to go to homecoming with Skye.” 

“We’re just going as friends!” Fitz explained. All he wanted was to make those tears stop running, he would have jumped in front of a car if Jemma said that would make her feel all right again.

“Of course you are oh my God!” Jemma felt shaky, she hadn’t cried this hard and inexplicably in her life. “You know, I’m very sorry Fitz, I think that this is what they call a hormonal reaction and I just want to apologize.”

“Are you ok? I won’t go! I’m so sorry!!” Fitz had no idea what was going on. “I won’t go! I never even wanted to go!”

“NO!” A wave of rage swelling inexplicably from Jemma’s gut threatened to overpower whatever hormonal emotion was making her cry so much. “No! Fitz! This is stupid! You absolutely HAVE to take Skye to homecoming, you two will have fun she’s really great and pretty and lovely and you HAVE to take her to homecoming.” 

“Why are you crying then?” Fitz asked.

“GO AWAY I DON’T KNOW!” Jemma practically wailed. “Just go home! It’s fine! Everything’s fine!”

“I can’t go with you like this…” Fitz protested, helpless and bewildered.

“YOU FUCKING BETTER.” Jemma put the foot down. She snatched her book out of his hands and lowered her voice a little. “Fitz, I’m just really embarrassed right now, and I think it would help me if you went home. Everything’s fine, nothing’s wrong, I’ve just absolutely gone mad that’s all.” 

“Oh… ok.” Fitz looked like he was going to start crying at this point, which to Jemma seemed like the worst possible response, so she turned away from him and rushed towards her house. Cars driving past slowed down to stare at the crazy red faced crying girl, trying to figure out if they needed to help. This just made everything worse. Jemma’s unbidden, seemingly ceaseless stream of tears just picked up the pace. She all but ran up to her house, putting every ounce of energy into being calm and normal and not crying.

“Hey love, mum’s out with her book club tonight so I thought I’d make some steaks…” Jemma’s dad announced, walking into the living room from the kitchen. At the sight of his daughter his expression darkened. Jemma looked splotchy and red and snotty. “Oh my God.” He said, “What happened!?” 

“Absolutely nothing! Nothing is wrong!” Jemma repeated, dropping her backpack to the floor with a thunk and trying in vain to pull herself together.

“Honey!” Her dad wrapped her in a big bear hug. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“F-Fitz…” Jemma heard her voice catch and started to cry even more. Her last remaining shred of dignity shouted at her to get her shit together. “Fitz is…” She sniffled, “going to homecoming with Skye.” She couldn’t believe how she sounded, her voice was twisted with anguish that she couldn’t explain. This wasn’t Jemma Simmons, Jemma Simmons was stronger than this. She didn’t care about boys. And this wasn’t even a boy, practically, it was Fitz!

“Oh honey.” Her dad hugged her even tighter. “Oh babe, this is way out of my skill set.” 

“I KNOW!” Jemma laughed a little bit through her tears. This was definitely a problem for her mom to help her sort out.

“Did you want to go to homecoming with Fitz?” Her dad asked, confused.

“NO! THAT’S THE STUPID THING!!!” She explained.

“You’re just crying for no reason?”

“That is exactly it.” She said, hiccuping a little bit. 

“Ok.” Her dad’s heart broke to see his daughter so upset, but having gathered that her life was in no immediate danger and no one had died or anything, he witnessed this latest episode as just another challenge of “raising a teenager” and he decided that perhaps leaving her alone would be the best available option. He steered his still weeping daughter towards the couch.

“I borrowed the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy film from the library… want a distraction?” He suggested.

Jemma couldn’t articulate words at that point, but she sniffled and nodded in assent. Her dad backed away from her like she was going to explode and put the dvd in the player. As the menu played she cried a bit harder, this time because her dad was being so nice. He planted a big smooch on her head as he headed back towards the kitchen.

“I’m going to make us some big juicy steaks, we can watch this absurd film, and hey, Jem?” Her dad stared his daughter right in the eye. “Fitz is a complete and total idiot.” 

His intentions were good, but the result was just for another bout of irrational tears from his daughter. 

Jemma ended up choking down her steak and managing to calm herself down by the time the credits rolled on the film. She felt exhausted, wrung out. She managed to tremble her way to her room and sink into her bed. She put a Grimes playlist on and spent the next hour and a half staring at the ceiling, working things out as tears continued to trickle down her temples intermittently. 

She drifted into one of those deep sleeps, the kind when you wake up you don’t know what continent you’re on. Unfortunately she was dragged back into consciousness by the sound of a sharp rapping on her window. Disoriented and lowkey terrified, she dragged herself out of the bed, shuddering when her bare feet hit her cold floor. She peeked through her dust coated blinds.

Fitz stood in the darkness outside her window, clutching a handful of pebbles and wearing the expression of a guilty, scolded puppy. 

Jemma exhaled in irritation, struggling to open her rarely touched blinds and finding, with some horror, that her windowsill was covered in dust and spiderwebs. Fitz gestured to her front door and she nodded back to him.

She pulled a robe on over her pjs and still crossed her arms when she opened the door, to hide the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. It had never really bothered her before.

“Jemma, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t bear it, are you all right?” Fitz asked. 

“You could’ve just texted me.” Jemma said. “I’m fine.”

“I won’t take Skye, I was an idiot for even agreeing…”

“No.” Jemma held up her hands to cut him off. “Fitz. I’ve done a lot of thinking.”

“So’ve I!” Fitz’s face lit up, eyes shining, but Jemma shushed him again.

“Please, Fitz. First of all, I’m due for my period in about two days so I’m going to lay the majority of the blame for today on estrogen.”

Fitz nodded. He had little to add to that.

“Second, you absolutely HAVE to take Skye to homecoming. Skye’s lovely! From everything you’ve told me about her and your, you know, your dad, it seems like she’s really great for you. I’m a bad shoulder to lean on, Fitz, you’ve told me before, I’ve all the emotional sensitivity of a dead crab.”

“No, Jemma…” Fitz was about to tell Jemma that she’d been there for him more than any other person in his life aside from his mother, but Jemma pressed ahead.

“Besides, I realized why I had such a strong reaction to the news even though I don’t like you, you know, like that.”

Hearing Jemma say those words out loud made Fitz’s insides turn to lead. 

She went on, 

“I just realized that for the past few weeks I’ve felt like our relationship was changing, like you didn’t want to be my friend anymore…” her voice began to waver again as she said it, “And that was just awful, because I really care about you and our friendship and I didn’t want it to change. And this news… I mean, friendships fall apart all the time when somebody gets a girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Fitz repeated.

“I know. Right. Just friends.” A few more stubborn tears fell down Jemma’s cheeks, embarrassingly, but she was able to wipe them away and keep going. She put a forced half smile on that made Fitz’s heart actually physically ache. “But if you did end up dating I just want you to know that I think Skye’s lovely and I’m happy for you. I just… I want to keep walking with you to school?” As she said the last few words her voice cracked again, and Fitz pulled her into a close, desperate hug.

“Of course we’ll keep walking to school together!” Fitz said, sqeezing Jemma closer and crying a few tears himself. “You’re my best friend!” 

For a few minutes they both stood there, clutching each other tightly. Fitz wasn’t lying when he said that Jemma was his best friend, but for the first time in his life he was wholly and with every particle of his being aware that his feelings for Jemma went deeper. 

“Oh, this is ridiculous.” Jemma pulled away from the hug with a more believable smile. “Fitz, you have to take Skye to homecoming.”

“I won’t if it hurts you at all…” Fitz said.

“Oh get over yourself.” Jemma laughed, wiping her tears away. “Now go home! I need sleep!”

Fitz started to shuffle off, but spun back around. 

“I’ll be here tomorrow though.” He said. “Things aren’t going to change!”

“All right.” Jemma smiled again. “They’d better not!”

Fitz managed to force a bit of a smile and gentle wave as Jemma shut the door on him. He felt, for the first time, the chill of the night sink in through his clothes. The grass of her lawn was wet and had soaked through his socks. He was quite alone.


	6. Carly Rae Jepsen-Level Anguish

Trip was surreptitiously checking his phone at his locker when he sensed a presence staring over his shoulder. Jemma Simmons stood about half a foot away from him, staring at him with a sort of frozen and terrified expression, like she’d been called upon to recite a poem and forgotten all the words.

“Oh uh, hey Simmons. What’s up?” He asked.

“Nothing! Just thought I’d say hi.” Jemma spoke at a mysteriously high octave, and continued to stand where she was, smiling oddly.

Trip slipped his phone back into his pocket, not sure what was going on but sensing that his fantasy football scores were just going to have to wait.

“Something up with Science Olympiad?” Trip asked. “Because I’ve been studying those microbes like nobody’s business. My sister made flash cards and everything.” 

“No, honestly I think we’re going to smash it on Microbes. I was just wondering…” Jemma glanced at the clock in the hallway. It was the five minute break between 6th and 7th period, the only time she had a chance to talk to Trip without Fitz’s presence in the hallway, and, in case things went badly, there would be minimal contact with Trip for the rest of the day. Her window was short and she’d already wasted half of it frozen like a madwoman. 

“You’ve been to homecoming before, right? The dance?” She asked.

Trip raised an eyebrow. 

“Sure. Have you?” 

“I think homecoming is a complete waste of time.” Jemma admitted. 

Trip laughed. “You are not wrong. Usually girls go crazy about it though.”

“Well that’s only because women are socialized to bundle all of our self worth and personal value into our ability to make boys find us attractive.” Jemma stated. 

“That’s fucked up.” Trip noted.

“Want to go to homecoming with me?” Jemma asked.

Trip let out a sort of of half-laugh, not sure if she was joking or not. 

“As friends, I mean.” Jemma continued. “See, usually Fitz and I meet up on dance nights and watch some dvds, but he’s actually going with Skye this year and I thought, you know, if you and I went we could go as a group!” She spoke very rapidly and with a kind of forced enthusiasm.

“Not gonna lie, I’m surprised you aren’t going with Fitz.” Trip said.

Jemma forced her face to remain in its current, bizarre expression.

“Mm.” She said. “So do you want to go to homecoming with me?”

“I uh, I’m really flattered that you’d ask me, but I’m actually going to Spring’s Highschool homecoming with a friend of mine who goes there, and it’s the same night.” 

“Oh.” Jemma hadn’t known that Trip had friends at Spring High. Come to think of it, for as much as she had talked to him this year, she really hadn’t gotten to know him very much at all. “You couldn’t…” Ever since her sob-fest, tears had been coming to Jemma much more easily. She’d teared up over a banner ad for syrup featuring a same sex couple that morning. A burning sensation in her eyes threatened another onslaught. “Never mind.” She whispered.

“You ok?” Trip wasn’t sure what was up with Jemma’s face at the moment, but she definitely looked like a girl who was hanging on by the thinnest of threads.

“It’s fine! You know…” She let out a sharp quick snort. “Honestly, I don’t even want to go to homecoming!? You wouldn’t guess it by the way I’ve been acting, but I would rather light myself on fire.”

“I believe you!” Trip said. The halls were beginning to empty of their fellow students. “I’m sorry I can’t take you. I mean, I’m sure it would be really fun!” 

“It probably wouldn’t be.” Jemma exhaled slowly. “I’m going to go to class. I hope you have fun at your other dance!” 

Trip watched sort of helplessly as Jemma walked away. Something was definitely up with that girl. He felt bad about it, but his friend Kaiyah had made him promise to take her to homecoming at the beginning of the year. She had this dude that was kind of obsessed with her so she wanted to have an excuse for turning him down all set up. He left for his next class, hoping against hope that he’d still be able to hang out with Jemma without things being weird.

Simmons walked into Chemistry just as the bell rang, to find Fitz sitting at their shared lab table, staring at the door like a puppy in a car waiting for their owner to come out of the grocery store. He grinned at her eagerly as she walked in, and Jemma had to fight another wave of some as yet unidentified emotion which threatened to make her fucking lose it.

She slid into her seat as Mrs. Rattan began to talk about some chemistry thing. It was a lab day apparently, which Jemma appreciated. She couldn’t focus. She felt like some sort of exterior force was pressing in on her on all sides and squeezing her into a little ball. 

Fitz pulled out his lab binder. Jemma realized she had left hers in her locker.

“Can I work off of yours?” Jemma whispered as everyone began to stand up and make their way over to their assigned lab stations. 

“Of course!” Fitz answered. “You all right? you look a bit… pale.” 

“Oh I’m sure it’s nothing I just…” As Jemma tried to explain that nothing was wrong she was just feeling strange buzzing sensation that was making it impossible to focus, she accidentally brushed one of the complex large glass chemistry vials right off of the table and crashing to the floor.

“Jemma!” Mrs. Rattan gasped. Those vials were not cheap. In fact, they were so expensive she kept them well out of her students way. Whatever Jemma must have done with her elbows to knock it off a table must have been a miracle of human physiology. “What is wrong with you!?”

“Oh give me a FUCKING BREAK!” Jemma responded at some volume, and everyone in the class gasped. Chloe Rosenkuhn snickered audibly, and when Jemma stared at her in horror Chloe gave her a supportive thumbs up. Fitz did his thing where he raised his eyebrows and bit his lip and looked adorable.

“GO TO THE OFFICE RIGHT NOW MS. SIMMONS.” Mrs. Rattan demanded. If any other student had sworn so obviously right in front of her face she would send them to the office, so it was only fair that sweet little Jemma go too. Jemma slowly, almost in shock, picked up her things and made her way to the door. Mrs. Rattan picked up the phone on her desk and dialed for Vice Principal May.

Jemma, shell-shocked, entered the principal’s office under much different circumstances than she ever had in the past. The student worker behind the reception desk looked up from their game of candy-crush, like they were annoyed at being interrupted. 

“Yeah?” The kid asked, taking a headphone bud out of one of their ears. 

“I’m… in trouble?” Jemma announced. It was a new experience, she’d never been in trouble beffore. As she said so the door to Principal May’s office opened. May looked extremely disappointed, and gestured silently for Jemma to follow her into her office.

By some miracle, Jemma had not yet started to cry. She took a seat across from Principal May and shakily lowered her backpack to the floor. She folded her hands on her lap, like she was awaiting a good scolding.

“Well, Jemma, can you tell me why you’re here?” May asked, really not all that sure herself.

“I broke a vial and I swore in front of Mrs. Rattan.” Jemma said. 

“Mrs. Rattan says you swore at her.” 

“I…” Jemma had to admit that her curse had sort of been directed towards her teacher, even though she could hardly believe that she had actually done it. “I didn’t mean to.”

Principal May examined the girl in her office. Jemma Simmons was pale at the best of times, but she looked almost bleached white at the moment, with dark gray circles under her eyes. She was staring at the desk, the floor, anything to avoid making eye contact, and her body was tense and rigid.

“Are you feeling all right?” Principal May asked.

Jemma finally looked up at May, with an expression that was almost resigned to misery. 

“I am so sorry, Principal May, but I think I’m having an emotional breakdown.”

May had seen this before. Take a smart kid, one of those overachieving kids who thinks they can handle everything and get into Harvard at 16, until they get a B on a quiz and their entire world comes crashing down. 

“Look, it’s ok.” May said. “Everything’s gonna be ok. I’m glad you’re here so we can talk about this. A lot of kids, they just bottle this up until they crack from the pressure and they end up making poor decisions. You’re taking a heavy course load this year.”

“Oh, it’s nothing like that.” Jemma laughed nervously. “School’s fine. I mean, I appreciate you taking academic pressures seriously, I was a real wreck in middle school, but academically I’m very much on top of things.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look a little stressed out.” May said. 

Jemma took another shaky breath.

“I’m so embarrassed.” She whispered.

“Spit it out, kid.” 

“I’m having boy problems.” Jemma almost couldn’t say it out loud. “It’s so stupid, it doesn’t matter.” She admitted, burying her face in her hands.

After a moment of staring coolly at a blubbering student, May picked up her phone. Boy problems were not her forte, but she had an idea of who could help.

About a half hour and a full box of tissues later, Principal Coulson nodded sympathetically at Jemma’s plight. May had shut herself in her safe, emotion free office and was breathing easily.

“I’m an idiot.” Jemma said with a whimper.

“No, this is all very new for you. You went from having two boys you thought might like you to being pretty much on your own.” Phil reassured her.

“But that’s terrible! What did I think, that Fitz would just prioritize me over everything!? I’m so selfish!”

“It’s not selfish, you two have always been close. But you’re right, if you don’t like Fitz in that way, and you’ve told me about 20 times that you don’t, then you definitely can’t stop him from taking somebody else to homecoming.”

“It’s like, logically, I know that, but somehow physically I can’t stop crying?!” Jemma said.

“Well, hormones are no joke.” Coulson said, offering her yet another tissue. 

“God, is this what normal high school girls are like all the time? Because it’s terrible!” Jemma exclaimed.

“I hate to break it to you Simmons, but you are a normal high schooler. You’re smart and all, but you’re still a kid.” 

“Well I hate it. I just want to go back to normal. Or… or drop out and start my own biochemical plant.”

“I’m not going to tell you you can’t drop out of high school and start a successful independent biochemical business, but I will recommend that you don’t. High school has a lot to offer. Letter jackets. Chicken patty Thursdays. You haven’t ordered a class ring yet, those are fun.” 

Jemma laughed. The last bell of the day rang.

“Oh gosh. I missed the whole lab.” Jemma said.

“Something tells me Fitz could handle it on his own.” Coulson replied. “Look, in the future, if you’re ever feeling sort of panicky like that, just tell your teacher that you’d like to come see me and we can have another talk. Or we can set you up with a guidance counselor. No more smashing glass and screaming obscenities.” 

“I’m so sorry.” 

“I’m gonna give you a warning on this one, seeing as this is your first office visit where I haven’t been giving you some kind of award.”

Jemma smiled. 

“Thank you. And tell Principal May thank you as well.”

“I will, even though she totally punted this one.” Principal Coulson said with a smirk.

Fitz waited nervously by Jemma’s locker after scrambling out of Chemistry class. He’d spent the whole 40 minutes of the lab fuming over Mrs. Rattan’s decision to send Jemma to the office. After successfully completing the work and cleaning up, he realized that a good friend would have stood up for Jemma or something. Taken the blame for it maybe? He wasn’t sure, but he was pretty positive he’d fucked it all up somehow. Trip came over to the lockers, with a nervous expression of his own,

“Hey Fitz! You looking for Jemma?” He asked.

“Yes, you seen her?” Fitz asked.

“No.” Trip grabbed everything he’d need for the weekend and zipped out of the school building like it was on fire. Fitz stayed put, getting more nervous by the second. What if Jemma had got suspended? That would be so unfair. She’d never done anything wrong at school before, ever. Fitz was getting himself nice and riled up about Jemma’s imagined punishment when he felt a tap on his shoulder. 

“Sup, buddy.” Skye was standing immediately behind him. As soon as the bell had rung she’d taken off her hoodie to reveal a dress code inappropriate purple sleeveless tank top that was really flattering to her high school flat abs. She’d walked around to Fitz’s locker because to do so she would pass in front of Mr. Ward’s office. He’d been cool about it, but she saw him glance after her when she walked past. Skye was still smirking in victory.

“What? Yeah! Hi! What? Cool.” Fitz said, like the smooth operator he was.

“Where’s Jemma?” Skye asked, noting that Fitz was lingering by her locker.

“I shouted ‘fuck’ at a teacher.” Jemma said as she rounded the corner of the hallway with a goofy smile.

“What?!” Skye cracked up. “You didn’t!?” 

“No she did. Are you expelled?” Fitz asked, taking a few small steps away from Skye and crossing his arms the way he did when he was anxious. 

“I got off with a warning.” Jemma looked at Fitz and Skye standing together and, to her great relief, didn’t feel like she was going to pass out. “How was the lab?”

“Oh it was fine, it was just a gravimetric analysis of…”

“calcium and hard water? Boring.” Jemma said. 

Skye looked at them, not for the first time, like they were aliens.

“In my last class a kid tried to tell me that tornadoes aren’t strong enough to pick up a cow.” Skye said. 

“What?” Jemma asked, incredulously. “Of course a tornado can pick up a cow.”

“Tragically.” Said Fitz.

“I mean, a tornado can throw a tractor trailer, what was this person thinking?”

“They kept saying, ‘it’s just air’ like that was somehow a valid point. And yet they still fought me for a solid ten minutes.” 

“God, normal classes are terrifying.” Fitz said.

“You two want a ride home?” Skye asked. “I was thinking of getting some chicken nuggets. With sweet and sour sauce.”

“How do you eat so many chicken nuggets and stay so slim?” Jemma asked.

“One day my metabolism is gonna fuck me over, but I’m riding it out until then.” Skye laughed.

“I think I’m going to walk home with Jemma.” Fitz said, glancing nervously between his two female companions. “If that’s all right.”

Jemma smiled at Fitz. She actually felt like some chicken nuggets actually, but she could tell that he was trying to make some kind of friendship gesture.

“Yeah, it’s a pass for me this time, Skye. Thanks though.” Jemma said.

“Ok fine, but you’re the ones missing out. Sweet and sour sauce is the SHIT.” Skye smiled and waved as the two friends walked off, side by side. As she made her way to the student parking lot, her phone buzzed.

“Hungry?” A text read, from Grant. She looked around, and saw that Mr. Ward was leaning against his car, parked in the teacher’s lot. He looked over at her for the briefest of instants, winked, and climbed into his car. Skye grinned.

Fitz stood in the entryway to Jemma’s house, feeling the full weight of the gaze of Mr. And Mrs. Simmons, who were staring at him like he was some kind of mysterious foreign object.

“Hello Mr. And Mrs. Simmons.” Fitz said, straining to be properly polite.

“Fitz and I are going to work on some Science Olympiad stuff.” Jemma said, dumping her backpack and things on the same decorative chair she always did. 

“You doing ok sweetheart?” Jemma’s dad asked his daughter, and his voice sounded more like he was saying “I can grab my shotgun at any time” than it ever had before. 

“Of course!” Jemma made her voice sound more chipper than she actually felt. She got Fitz’s attention and the two of them scurried back to her room to escape her parents.

Fitz had been in Jemma’s bedroom before. Many times in fact. He had actually helped her put up some of the many photographs of Channing Tatum she had taped to the wall by her bedstead. She had told him at the time that she thought Channing Tatum had a “nice dancing body” for which he had teased her for weeks. This was the first time that the thought of being alone with Jemma in her room made his throat tighten up a little bit and his palms sweat. He tried to wipe his hands on his shirt surreptitiously and ended up standing with his hands on his ribs and his elbows pointed out in the way that his father always made fun of him for.

“I can’t believe we haven’t practiced for ‘Write It, Do It’ once.” Jemma said, pulling out the chair at her dad’s old desktop computer that he let her keep in her room. She was pretty sure her parents were going to buy her a laptop before she went to college, but for now she had to suffer through slow internet and stupidly low storage. “It’s so unlike us.” 

“Yup.” Fitz sat down on the edge of Jemma’s bed to look at the screen over her shoulder, but it struck him as soon as he did so that maybe that was weird so he stood up again and stood awkwardly next to her. 

“You all right?” Jemma asked. She had had a long day and Fitz was fidgeting all over the place even more than usual. 

“Sure! Yup, yes.” Fitz hated everything about himself at that moment and had to focus on behaving like an actual human person. Suddenly, disastrously, he noticed something visible through the slightly ajar door of Jemma’s closet. A cute tan bra with a little turquoise bow hung from the edge of her hamper, where Jemma must have absently tossed it aside the night before. It was mesmerizing. It was the only thing he could look at. The image of Jemma in that undergarment with a little turquoise ribbon right between her breasts overwhelmed him. He sat on her bed again, then jumped right back up.

Jemma, blind to Fitz’s mental anguish, was finally able to pull up one of the practice rounds of “Write it, Do it.” 

“Ok, the bag of materials that Mr. Mack gave me like a month ago is in my closet, can you grab it?” Jemma asked. 

“What closet?” Fitz’s voice cracked as he asked.

Jemma gave Fitz a look. There was only one closet in the room. 

“Right, yes, good,” Fitz approached the closet with caution, doing everything possible to avoid staring at Jemma’s visible laundry basket and brassiere. 

He tried to think of every annoying thing about Jemma to cool down what was rapidly becoming an incapacitating attraction. Jemma could be such a know it all. She had this sing-songy voice when she was explaining something to you that could make you feel like an idiot. Her elbows were sharp like knives and she wielded them with an awkward nonchalance which left anyone walking beside her, or god forbid, buckling a seatbelt in close proximity, vulnerable to injury. She breathed really loudly when she was thinking. He smiled to himself at the thought of it. Fuck. This was bad.

“Hey, Jemma, I’m sorry, but, I think I’ve got to go home.” Fitz said, retreating from her closet door.

“Fitz!” Jemma looked up from her notepad, where she had been scribbling furiously. The timer on her computer was still visibly counting down. “Fitz, we haven’t practiced once!”

“I’m so sorry, I’ve just remembered, I told my mum that I would go shopping with her tonight so I’ve got to go.” Fitz was surprised at how quickly the lie came. But he had to get out of that bedroom, he was already feeling flushed and stupid and even Jemma’s obviously irritated face was making him swoon a little bit. 

“Ok, right, I understand.” Jemma had been having a hard time focusing herself, she kept forgetting their team’s agreed upon abbreviations. She smiled. “I’m glad we were able to walk home together!” 

“Oooh boy. Ok.” Fitz muttered, feeling his insides turn to mush. “All right, sorry again, bye!” 

He rushed past Mr. And Mrs. Simmons, waving an awkward goodbye as he fled the premises.

Mrs. Simmons knocked on her daughter’s door.

“What did you say to that boy? He shot out of here like a streak of light!” She asked.

“Nothing!” Jemma opened the door in surprise. “He said he had to go help his mum.”

Mrs. Simmons shifted her weight. 

“So do we hate Fitz, or do we like him? I can’t quite follow.”

“Mum, we obviously like Fitz, I was just being silly.” Jemma said. For a second she considered telling her mum about asking Trip to homecoming, but she thought better of it. Her mother would be too kind and supportive and that would just be too much to handle.

“Well good. Because I’m quite fond of Fitz.” Her mother winked at her, and Jemma had absolutely no idea what that was meant to convey.

It was early to start training for track and field season but Bobbi Morse was not the type of person to sit around and waste time. Their high school gym was a sweaty, disgusting mess, and the faux leather covering the boxes she used for Step-Up training flaked off every time she planted her foot on it. At first it had been distracting, but after about 3 minutes of intense work she had made it into the zone. She didn’t even notice the mildew smell anymore as she stepped up and down, turning her medicine ball as she did so to get some upper arm strength in there. 

“Hey Bobbi!” The chipper voice of Jemma Simmons was audible over even Bobbi’s workout playlist, and Bobbi, panting, turned around.

“Oh! Hi!” Her lungs stung and Bobbi had to wipe off streams of sweat from her forehead as she turned, but she tried to be polite. “What’s up Jemma?”

“Hello! So sorry to interrupt.” Jemma said. “Wow, that looked really hard!” 

“Step ups, yeah…” Bobbi tried again to get her breathing back to a normal range. Their PE teacher, who was sitting in her office, glanced over at the skinny girl with a brightly colored cardigan and non athletic shoes standing in the middle of her gymnasium and gave Bobbi a questioning look. “They suck. Something on your mind?” Bobbi asked.

“This is silly, but I was thinking, I’m not planning on going to homecoming this year, but I thought it might be nice if you came over and we had a ladies night in! We could bake cakes and order Chinese food and watch…” Jemma struggled to think of a “normal girl” film that wasn’t a Rankin Bass animated version of the Hobbit from the 70s. “Die Hard?” She attempted.

Bobbi’s face, still coated in sweat, softened.

“Oh Jemma, I’m sorry, but Hunter and I are going to Homecoming together.”

“Pardon?” Jemma asked.

“Yeah, we’re dating again. I’m pretty psyched about it, actually.”

Jemma could not hide her disbelief. Only last week Bobbi had described Lance as a pig person, with her apologies to pigs for the comparison. 

“Sure! Great, that’s just… great for you.” Jemma congratulated through clenched teeth. She was even getting turned down for her alternative homecoming plans. This dance this was a fucking nightmare.

“You can come with us though! We’re trying to get a group together.” Bobbi spoke gently but somehow still smugly. She was all set with her date, giving alms out to the poor, single girls who couldn’t attract anybody worthwhile.

“No thanks. I know this is hard to believe but I really don’t want to go to homecoming.” Jemma sighed. “You should ask Fitz and Skye though, they might be interested.”

“They’re going to homecoming? Who with?” Bobbi asked, wandering over to the water fountain, her rhythm from her exercise totally lost.

“Each other.” Jemma said.

Bobbi spat out her water.

“WHAT? Fitz and Skye?!” Bobbi squinted, as though trying to picture it in her head. “Wow. Nice going, Fitz.” 

“Right, yes, we’re all very proud.” Jemma snarked before she could stop herself. “Nice chat, I’ll let you get back to your workout.” She made her way out of the gymnasium, taking some deep breaths.

“You are an attractive, intelligent, valuable person.” She whispered to herself. “People like you very much. This is just a stupid dance.”

That evening, lying comfortably on her yellow bedspread and reading and rereading the same sentence in her science fiction book to no avail, Jemma Simmons finally gave up and snapped her book shut. Her bedroom was mostly dim, lit by a single bulb lamp on her bedside table, leaving the corners dark in shadow. As a child the dark corners of her room used to terrify her enough that her father bought her a nightlight. But the dim sickly green light of her father’s energy efficient nightlight had scared her worse than the darkness, and little Jemma had adjusted to pitch black.

Jemma remembered her feeling of unease when she learned that the human eye picked up the reflections of light off of surfaces and sent signals to the brain based off of that information. She felt that light, an outside force, had an unfair amount of control over her perception of the world. If she couldn’t control her perceptions, than how could her judgment be trusted? 

Science was comforting in that it provided a real, substantive bolster to one’s own perceptions. There were methods in place to determine the truth, and when one had done their due diligence and followed the correct methodology, one could discover so much.

Everyone always whinged about how people were so complicated and unpredictable but up until this point Jemma had never really agreed. People behaved largely as their biological and cultural impulses drove them to behave, and were almost frighteningly predictable. Confident in her friends and her worldview, the complexities of social mores seemed insignificant. Banal. But what if… A creeping chill worked its way up Jemma’s spine.

What if I’m wrong? What if everyone else in the world sees me in a way that I can’t? What if I’m a freak?

Jemma shook her head to clear it and sat up in her bed. These intrusive thoughts reeked of standard teenage hormonal nonsense. But, to be safe, she could do her best to objectively examine the evidence of her own social value.

She really only had about three friends. That was pretty weird actually, when she thought about it. it was just that one of those friends was so close she didn’t really feel like she needed many more. She’d never been asked out by anybody in her life, and recent developments had led her to believe that she didn’t have as good an understanding of when a boy was interested in her than she thought she had. She had multiple times in the past been told by other girls that she was weird and, in middle school, that she had poor fashion sense. 

“Oh, shut up.” Jemma told herself firmly. She stood up and made her way to the bathroom, flipping on the bright fluorescent lights that revealed every pore and flaw in her skin. She gave herself a stern stare in the mirror. So she was a freak, what of it? There were worse things to be. She narrowed her eyes and pulled her shoulders back. “I like me.” She said to herself. “Everyone else can fuck off.”


	7. D.A.R.E.

Fitz’s suit fit everywhere except the arms, so when he stood up his sleeves hung at about the knuckle of his thumb. His mother had spent a bit more than they could afford on the suit at Marshall’s, and he couldn’t bear to tell her that they might have to shill out some more money to get it tailored. So he sat nervously in the front seat of his mum’s car, toying with his sleeves, feeling like a little kid in his dad’s clothes.

Somehow it had been decided that since Fitz was the boy he had to go pick Skye up, even though, of the two of them, she was the one with the learner’s permit. So it left him in the bizarre position of having his mother drive him to pick up his date. Even though everyone repeatedly assured him that this was perfectly normal and common practice, Fitz couldn’t shake the feeling that any date for which one’s mother dropped one off was not worth the title. Skye had told him that her dress was yellow, and he had dutifully purchased warm colored flowers to match and rented a yellow vest and tie. His pants were too tight, he hadn’t worn in his shoes yet so his toes were pinched, and he sat with his face leaning against the window like somebody getting bussed into prison for the next 20 to life. 

His mother snickered.

“What?” He asked, rolling his head around until it almost faced her, but not bothering to actually lift his head.

“You’re just funny, that’s all.” His mum laughed. “I’m going get some handsome photos, I can tell that right now.” 

Fitz groaned slightly and his mum tickled his side to get a rise out of him.

“Mum!” He whined, finally sitting up and smoothing out his suit jacket. He nearly dropped Skye’s corsage box. 

“Well if you’re going to sulk like a five-year-old I’m going to tickle you like a wee little five-year-old.” 

Fitz didn’t respond, but he didn’t sink down into his seat again. He adjusted his tie and took a few deep breaths. He wondered what Jemma was up to.

The cold chill of fall was just starting to threaten their suburb, but it was still warm enough that the girls going to homecoming didn’t have to wear wraps or shawls. Skye was relieved about that, because her dress didn’t have a lot going for it other than it showed off her chest and back. She’d grabbed it from the cheapest of bargain racks at the mall and fixed its broken zipper herself. She’d done her own makeup and hair, and relied on youth and natural beauty for the rest of it. Taking in her reflection in her compact makeup mirror, she figured that that was as good as it was going to get that night. She shrugged and opened the door of her bedroom.

Immediately she had to jump back, as her 10 year old foster sister sped down the second floor hallway on a razor scooter, laughing wildly and not wearing a helmet.

“Oh hey what’s up, Stevie?” Skye said, putting on her best stern older sisterly tone. “Hey, do you think you can tell me why maybe what you’re doing is a bad idea?””

Stevie, by far the most sensible of her siblings, just laughed and scooted into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Shortly later there were several loud thunks from inside the room. 

“Cool yeah fine.” Skye rolled her eyes and hitched up her dress to behin her ginger descent of the stairs. Her success at making down the whole flight in high heels without tripping and killing herself was perhaps her proudest moment of the day. 

In the kitchen, Skye’s foster mother was boiling some water to cook up some macaroni and cheese and simultaneously trying to stop Brianna, a wild 4 year old, from stealing any more cantaloupe out of the fridge. Pieces of the fruit were scattered around the floor of the kitchen from previous thefts. 

“Brianna I swear to God, if you don’t just LISTEN.” Skye’s foster mother grabbed the toddler by the back of her shirt and gently scooped her up into her arms, grabbing a box of butter out of the fridge before slamming the fridge shut. Turning back to the stove, she finally caught a glimpse of Skye in all of her homecoming glory. “Oh Skye! You look pretty as a picture!” 

“Thanks Janet!” Skye struck a pose, but had to dodge Zachary, Brianna’s 6 year old brother, who ran at full speed past her into the kitchen, barreling right into their foster mom. 

It was just a normal night in Poots household. The doorbell rang.

“Ooh, is that your boyfriend?” Skye’s foster brother Hector shouted from the living room, where he was playing Call of Duty and not helping his mom. 

“We’re just friends.” Skye shouted back to him. 

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Janet muttered, dumping the box of Kraft noodles in the now boiling pot and turning the heat down while Brianna tried as hard as she could to wrestle her brother to the ground. “Watch those two for a second, Hector!” She instructed as she hurried out after her foster daughter to let Fitz in.

The front door opened to reveal a pleased as punch Mrs. Fitz standing with a camera looking like she could bubble over with excitement at any moment. Fitz, next to her, looked like a 15 year old in an ill fitting suit.

“All right Skye?” Fitz asked, smiling weakly. 

“‘sup Fitz?” Skye asked, grinning at the spectacle. For some reason Fitz’s mom had put a ton of gel in his hair, turning each individual curl into a sort of hard plastic looking loop. He looked like the doll version of Justin Timberlake in the “it’s Gonna Be Me” video. 

“You look nice.” He said. He wasn’t wrong. Skye’s off the shoulder yellow flowing gown looked like a cheap knockoff version of Beyonce’s iconic Lemonade video dress but she was, without doubt, rocking it. The biggest douchebag bro in the high school would numerically rank her as a 9 or a 10, easy.

“You must be Fitz!” Janet said, emerging from behind her foster daughter. She was a kind looking overweight woman in her late forties who was dressed in an oversize t-shirt and sweat pants. A former nurse, Janet had a big heart, fibromyalgia, and a taste for Facebook minion memes. She was a sweet if not always 100% rational lady. Skye usually just stayed out of her way.

“JANET!” A shrill shriek pierced the air as two toddlers exploded out of the kitchen. A tearful little blonde boy, covered head to toe in yogurt, rushed towards his foster mother. Brianna sprinted down the hallway.

“BRIANNA! GET IN HERE!” Janet shouted, abandoning Skye at the door and chasing down the errant child. “HOW CAN YOU DO THAT TO YOUR BROTHER?!?” 

Skye made a sort of desperate chuckle and looked back at her guests.

“Hey, uh, what can you do?” She said, gesturing for them to come inside. 

“Nice to meet you Janet!” Mrs. Fitz called out after Skye’s retreating foster mom. 

“Your house is lovely.” Fitz said to his date, checking off another casual polite phrase off of his mental list.

“Well, it’s a house.” Skye said. “That’s always good.” 

Mrs. Fitz, and, after a few minutes, Janet, put Fitz and Skye through all the poses normally foisted upon youthful dance attendees. Their repertoire featured the “awkward walking down the stairs picture” the “awkward boys hands on the girls waist picture” and, the favorite, “standing in a badly lit backyard because why not?” photo. 

After about the 50th picture, Hector emerged from the back door. 

“Hey! You guys almost ready?”

“One minute Hector!” Skye shouted back, breaking from her fixed fake smile face for a minute.

“What’s it matter?” Fitz asked, “Aren't you driving us?” 

“No, Janet found out I was driving with just a learners permit and flipped out. Hector’s gonna drop us of at Biaggi’s and then pick us up for the dance.”

“Ah.” Fitz felt ridiculous getting chauffeured around all of these places, but just shrugged. “We’d better head out then, right?” 

Dinner was fine. There were a few other kids all dolled up for homecoming scattered around the restaurant, all talking too loudly and making the other diners feel uncomfortable and old. Fitz remembered about halfway through the meal that he did actually like Skye quite a bit. It was just that the only girl he wanted to be eating with at a fancier than usual restaurant was Jemma.

They were considering buying a dessert when Skye’s phone buzzed.

“Fucking Hector, he’s such a pain. He’s here already.” 

“No worries, we’ll just get the check.” Fitz said. Of course neither of them were the sort of people who would flag a waitress over, so they waited for the check with unnecessary nervousness, as Hector texted them every minute or so to remind them that he was idling out in the parking lot and would appreciate it if they would move their asses.

The waitress eventually put the bill right in front of Fitz. Skye almost grabbed it away from him but he snatched it up. 

“No no no I’m the man… person. I’ve got it!” Fitz reached for his wallet.

“We’re going as friends, Fitz, let me pay dutch.” Skye complained.

“My mum will rip my head off if she finds out I let you pay for dinner. Look at me, I’m wearing a goddamn yellow vest for Christ's sake, let me pay for dinner.” 

“You’re such a loser.” Skye laughed, but she let Fitz pay the bill. 

As they approached Hector’s ancient and faded Honda station wagon in the parking lot he flashed the brights in their eyes, as punishment for making him wait, presumably. 

Fitz made sure to open the door for Skye, but as he started to she waved for him to stop.

“Actually I’m going to run to the bathroom in there first. Sorry, be back in a second.” Skye jogged back towards the entrance of the restaurant, and Fitz sat down heavily in the back of the station wagon on his own. 

“Where the fuck is she going?” Hector complained. 

“Toilet.” Fitz explained, leaning back in the seat. Next to him, on the middle seat of the station wagon, there was a red plastic Tupperware with the lid slightly open. Fitz, not one to be put off from a snack, even if he had just eaten an entire tray of pasta, examined the contents. The whole Tupperware was full of dark fudge brownies. He glanced to the front seat. Hector was scrolling through his phone’s Instagram feed impatiently. Remembering how he and Skye had been prevented from ordering dessert because of Hector, Fitz gently popped open the lid of the container. Hector didn’t budge. Fitz sneakily downed one of the brownies and gently replaced the lid, smiling at his own cunning. 

Finally Skye came out of the restaurant. Hector actually beeped the horn this time, making both Fitz and Skye jump. 

“Oh my God Hector, you are SUCH a pain in the ass.” Skye grumbled as she took her seat. 

“I’m spending my Saturday night driving you two around aren't I?” Hector shot back. He turned his music up loud and squealed out of the parking lot, driving like your average cocky teenage boy who hasn’t had to come to terms with his own mortality yet. 

Fitz wasn’t one to hoard a good thing, so he tapped Jemma’s arm and gestured to the Tupperware so she’d know about the opportunity at hand. When Skye saw what he was gesturing to her eyes widened for a second in shock. She leaned forward and whispered in his ear, over the bad angsty white boy pop music. 

“Did you eat one of those?” She asked. 

Fitz nodded, not sure why she was asking. Surely it was obvious. Skye covered her face, trying to stifle her laughter. More laughter than Fitz felt was really necessary, to be honest.

“Fuck it.” She said under her breath, and grabbed a brownie.

“What’s the matter?” Fitz asked. 

Skye downed her brownie in one bite, still giggling to herself. 

“Fitz, these are ‘special’ brownies.” She explained, keeping her voice low.

For a few seconds Fitz thought about what could possibly make these brownies special. Her dead grandma’s recipe? Tomato based? Really old? Then, in a moment of clarity, he realized what he had just done.

“DID I JUST EAT A MARIJUANA BROWNIE!?” Fitz’s whisper was so urgent that he might as well have been speaking out loud. Skye didn’t respond, she was giggling so hard she had sunk down in her seat.

Just as the sun began to set, students began to stream into the local community college’s sparsely decorated gymnasium. Lots of kids went to homecoming in groups, still more went in a little buzzed after meeting at somebody’s house or truck and chugging a few Smirnoff ice. Leopold Fitz had never in his life been tempted to partake in any such illicit tomfoolery. Now he found himself sweating in his uncomfortable suit, stepping into line with a few hundred other of his fancied up schoolmates, under the highly unexpected influence of an illegal drug. 

“I’m not feeling anything.” He whispered to Skye, as they waited for the interminable line to scoot closer to the ticket desk. “Maybe I’m immune?” 

Skye gave him a look.

“It’ll take a hot minute.” She said, “edibles take a little while to digest, but when they hit, they hit hard.”

Fitz felt like throwing himself out a window. Finally they made it up to the two senior girls who had pulled the short straw of volunteering to run homecoming, rather than taking part in the shenanigans. Skye and Fitz presented their tickets wordlessly. The blonde check in girl with a top knot and an inexpert attempt at a contour stared at them critically. 

“You guys didn’t have to stand in line if you already had tickets. You could have just given them to the people at the doors.” She said, blandly. 

“Oh!” Skye said with a laugh. “Well we just wanted to be doubly sure, because we are such good rule and law-abiding people.” 

With a cold bolt of terror Fitz noticed Vice Principal May, dressed in a very nice silver pant suit, really laying into two stoner boys with acne covered faces and faded Kool Ade dyed hair. That’s me. Fitz thought. They’re getting in trouble but I’m the one that’s stoned right now. He flushed with shame.

“Hey,” Skye nudged him. “Let’s go dance!” She dragged her reluctant date towards the grimly crepe papered entrance to the gym. 

The gym was almost festive, but for the most part dark and echoey. It was a large space, a little too large for the number of students attending at the moment, and the vacuous empty darkness of the area which during a basketball game would be the stadium seating was a little off putting. The banner ads, usually well illuminated and circling the gym floor, were dim and hard to make out. Colored lights swirled around the room from the central DJ area, where two thirty-something professional DJs who hated their lives and each other were playing some top 40. 

“How are you doing?” Skye checked in. “Feeling all right?” 

Fitz still wasn’t feeling any effects of the brownie, but the fact that Skye was checking in on him like a toddler about to get a shot was troubling to him. It occurred to Fitz that he had never really had his mind altered by drugs before. The closest he had come to it was when his doctor knocked him out to get his wisdom teeth removed, and then he had almost had a panic attack at the thought of being forced into an unconscious state. He felt his chest tighten, like someone was pulling a large stretchy rubber band around his sternum. I should call Jemma he thought, she had a good memory for these things and was sure to have read about marijuana side effects at some point. They’d both got a little medal from the D.A.R.E. program. 

 

Skye grabbed Fitz’s arm and pulled him towards the dance floor.

“Oh Christ, I haven’t got to dance now have I?” Fitz said, he could have wept. 

“Yes Fitz, you do.” Skye said. “This song is fucking great.” 

Fitz didn’t recognize the song, because he didn’t listen to the radio, but Skye was right. The DJ had picked an older hit, “Elastic Heart” by Sia, and the throbbing emotional swells of that song were just really doing it for Skye right then. A lot of kids were still milling around on the edges of the dance floor, screaming and greeting each other like they didn’t see each other every single day at school. Most kids hadn’t yet made it out to dance. Skye was unintimidated by the lack of fellow dancers. She made her way to one of the large open spaces and started doing her best imitation of the little blonde girl in all of Sia’s videos. 

The closest Fitz had ever come to dancing in public was nodding his head to a cd his mom was playing in the car. He tried to figure out what his dance strategy should be by looking at the other boys who were bopping around him. Some of them were obviously quite good, so he looked right past them as impossible to even imitate. Some boys were joke dancing in a super feminine way as a joke, which Fitz found to be fairly homophobic and stupid. Finally, he found his perfect medium. Mr. Ward, standing off the edge of the dance floor, was tapping his foot, swaying moderately, and moving his head just ever so slightly to the music. Fitz could do that. He started to imitate, and Skye danced opposite him for a minute. 

For a moment, dancing to a good song with a pretty girl, Fitz felt almost all right with the state of the world. But as he bounced his head and swayed to the music, he began to feel as though time was acting strangely. The song could have been playing for an hour or something. Fitz kind of felt like the song had always been playing, in some way. He’d been at this dance for a million years. Or fifteen minutes. Hard to be sure. This must be what being high feels like he realized, trying to figure out what to do with his arms. People LIKE this?

“You won’t see me FALL APART!” Sia’s recorded voice boomed throughout the stadium. It struck Fitz as a really really profound lyric. Usually, when confronted with a problem, Fitz could trust his intellect to help him out of it. But in this situation his brain was the thing he could trust the least. He found that it helped him keep track of time better if he had something to focus on visually, and the swirling colored lights served this purpose nicely. Fitz stared intently at a particular swirling flowery shape, endlessly changing and growing and shrinking in diameter, projected over a Karl’s Jr. ad on the wall of the gymnasium. 

“Hey Fitz, what’s up?” Bobbi and Hunter greeted him cheerfully. Fitz turned with deliberate slow concentration to greet his friends, in a somewhat self sabotaging attempt to act normally. 

“Nothing. Is… up.” Fitz said, super normally and not weirdly at all. “How… are you?” 

Bobbi had chosen not to give a flying fuck about the fact that she was 5’11” and had worn three inch heels. She towered over both Fitz and her date, and looked like a fucking goddess. Hunter stared up at her adoringly. He’d never been bothered by a silly little thing like height. Their relationship problems stemmed from deeper issues of emotional immaturity and piss poor communication. 

“We’re good. You ok?” Bobbi asked. 

“You… look… nice.” Fitz kind of shout mumbled. 

“Thanks!” Bobbi’s black dress emphasized both her muscular definition and her feminine form. It had cost considerably more than Skye’s bargain bin find. 

“Where’s Skye?” Hunter asked. Fitz scanned the area and realized that he had misplaced his date somehow. He did his best to scan the fast moving, colorful, and to his perspective somewhat blurred crowd. 

“She’s over there.” Fitz said when he spotted her, “Talking to Mr. Ward.”

It was really loud on the dance floor, and Fitz figured that was why Skye was leaning in so close to the teacher. 

“Hold up, that’s a teacher?!” Bobbi asked, taking in Mr. Ward’s shoulder to waist ratio with approval. 

“Well. Study hall.” He clarified. Moderating a room of students working silently hardly qualified as teaching in his opinion. It was more like babysitting. Fitz mentally patted himself on the back for keeping up such a coherent conversation for as long as he had, while the universe around him dissolved into chaos. He smiled to himself about his little secret. 

Sia’s pop majesty finally faded into the next track, some kind of trap song. Normally Fitz would have scoffed over such overproduced, lyrically problematic music, but he had to admit that it was even easier to dance to than the first song. Bobbi and Hunter gave up trying to chat over the booming music and started to bop along with Fitz. For a couple minutes, again, Fitz was feeling pretty good. This was manageable. Whenever he felt like time was getting too weird for him he would focus on one of the swirly lights, which continued to shine around the floor and walls in predictable patterns. Swirly lights were FUCKING AMAZING. Things around him become more fuzzy, difficult to follow unless he really concentrated. The dance floor was getting more crowded, sweaty teenage bodies pressing and bumping against each other.

Suddenly, the lights changed from swirling colorful pinwheels to immobile white spotlights. Less satisfying to focus on, Fitz found himself at a bit of a loss, swaying on his feet, feeling woozy. The tight feeling in his chest, which he had been trying to ignore, came back in full force, along with a really uncomfortable feeling of dry mouth. He scanned around for Skye, again, wanting to ask her if a tight painful chest was normal, or if he was having an allergic reaction or a heart attack or something. But Skye hadn’t come back over from where she had been chatting with Mr. Ward, and now he couldn’t find her anywhere on the dance floor. 

The DJ switched from the bouncing danceable trap song to the first slow dance track of the night. Bobbi and Hunter clung to one another closely, happy for an excuse to touch, no matter how cheesy the music. Fitz felt panic rising in his throat and focused on breathing deep, even breaths. It occurred to him that if he didn’t focus on breathing he might stop breathing entirely. Maybe people who are super stoned just forget to breathe all the time and die. He started to count for his intakes of breath and exhales. His proximity to so many other people became suddenly intolerable, and he was so hot that he was sweating buckets. Still focusing on his breathing, he made his way off the dance floor and lumbered towards the snack table off to the side of the gym. 

Vice Principal May stood behind the snack table, with crossed arms. She looked more like a guard at a prison camp than like an attractive middle aged woman attending a social event. Fitz paused, but the blue cooler sitting at his feet, packed with mini water bottles suspended in rapidly melting ice, proved too tempting to resist. Fitz grabbed one, tore the lid off, and downed the whole bottle in less than a minute. It felt like cool heaven pouring down his throat, but seconds after finishing it his mouth was as dry and cottony as ever. He went to grab another bottle. 

“Thirsty, Mr. Fitz?” May asked. 

“Yeah.” Fitz said, still focusing on breathing. It was impossible to open his eyes all the way for some reason. May, who had seen more than her share of stoned youths in her time, didn’t register the clear signs of marijuana use, at least when demonstrated on one of the top students in her school. His name was Leopold for fuck’s sake. She’d seen him build a fully functioning rocket science project from memory. His half open eyes and slightly off balance demeanor didn’t trigger any response. 

Fitz grabbed another water bottle and a bag of Doritos for good measure. The Doritos, as it turned out, had been his best decision all night. Fitz could taste every single chemical particle of that cheese flavor, and it was transporting. He ate the whole bag of Doritos faster than he’d chugged his drink. 

While the Doritos had been transcendent, their joy was fleeting. He still couldn’t find Skye anywhere, and it occurred to him that he really could be having an allergic reaction and dying and there was no-one anywhere around that knew what was up and could help him. The music picked up again, but the deep booming bass felt too frenetic to focus on, and Fitz made a rush for the exit. 

The cool air outside struck Fitz’s sweat soaked suit and changed from pleasant to freezing almost instantly. Aside from a few chaperones lurking outside to make sure no monkey business was going down, nobody was out there. Still no Skye. Fitz looked at his phone. No messages. He started to type.

Jemma was in her PJ’s, powering through a Ben & Jerry’s pint of Cinnamon Roll flavored ice cream, watching the 1982 BBC version of the Scarlet Pimpernel, because fuck it. Her parents were in their room watching an Australian soap opera, having decided to give Jemma some privacy. She almost missed her phone ringing, because she had it on silent, but it lit up the darkened room enough that she noticed the call. The name Fitz on caller ID did not exactly tempt her to answer. She worried he was going to tearfully apologize again, or worse, tell her how much fun he was having and try to get her to come out. Right before it went to voicemail she groaned and answered. 

“Yes, Fitz?” She asked, cuddling a bit deeper underneath her blanket. 

“Jemma,” Fitz said. “I love you.”


	8. Ten Dollars

The chilly night air cut right through Jemma’s pajama top as she darted across her lawn to where her father’s car was parked in the street. She shakily pressed the unlock button on the keys a hundred times eventually fumbling the car door open. She shivered in the drivers seat for a few seconds, trying to remember how everything worked. Jemma had started the very early phases of practicing driving with her father the previous weekend. She had driven around a parking lot, practiced accellerating, stopping and starting, and parking.

“Stupid… Fitz…” She muttered, turning the keys and fighting down feelings of profound guilt. It took her a few minutes to find out how to turn on the headlights, she’d only driven in the daytime before. Once she found them she discovered that the symbols for “brights” vs. “headlights” were confusingly similar, and that took another few minutes to figure out. As nervous as she was, she never considered calling Fitz and telling him he was on his own. He had told her what happened, that he was scared and needed help, and Jemma was going to do it. She couldn’t tell her parents because she knew they would 100% tell his parents, thinking they were doing the right thing, and she didn’t want to think about what would happen to Fitz if his dad found out about this. 

As for what Fitz had told her on the phone, Jemma had decided to deal with that later, when Fitz was less stoned and more in control of what he was saying.

Jemma had a basic idea of how to get to the convention center where homecoming was held, but the first time she had to pull up to an intersection for a left turn she realized that she had no idea when she could go. There was some law about turning on a red, wasn’t there? Fuck. The light didn’t have one of those extra lights that turn into a green arrow. God, she would kill for an arrow signal right then. Cars were pulling up around her as she tried to logic her way through how intersections work, but it was too late, there wasn’t enough time. The light turned green. That meant you can go right?

Ten harrowing minutes and 5 utterly panic inducing horn honks later, Jemma pulled into the parking lot. Fitz was sitting on the curb in mostly darkness, sketching little lines on the concrete with a small rock. It took him a minute to register that Jemma was driving the car rolling towards him at about 1.5 miles per hour. 

“Fitz.” Jemma commanded, rolling her window down slowly like a drug dealer. “Get up.” 

“Jemma!” Fitz whispered, stunned, “You can’t drive!” 

“Get in the car Fitz.” Jemma said grimly. “Where’s Skye?” 

“I don’t know, I’ve lost her!” Fitz said, skipping around to the passenger side of the car. Jemma struggled to find the door unlock button. When she found it he hopped into the car.

“I can’t get out and look Fitz, I’m in my jimjams.” Jemma explained.

“I’ll just text her I’ve left.” Fitz said. “Her brother’s going to pick her up anyway.” 

“Good.” Jemma waited for Fitz to buckle his seatbelt, and for a minute they both sat in an unusual, awkward silence. “I googled your symptoms, by the way.” Jemma said. “They all sound normal. I mean, stupid, but not like an allergic reaction or anything.”

“Thanks Jemma.” Fitz said, very softly. He crossed his arms and sank into his seat like he wanted to curl up into the fetal position. He looked the way he had on the way home from their first science olympiad, when Fitz had totally whiffed an easy question and lost them a few points in competition. He’d been so guilty and embarrassed on the bus that Jemma had had to distract him with a persistent, obnoxious game of “I Spy” until he laughed.

“So.” Jemma said, with a touch of a teasing tone, “Should we go listen to ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ or something?” 

Fitz made a grumbling noise of protest. Jemma laughed. 

“All right, fine, let’s just get you home then.” Jemma focused all of her concentration on driving, making a slow and wide loop to turn around in the parking lot. She prayed nobody was seeing her sub-par driving performance, and almost immediately spotted a couple making out between two SUV’s. For a moment she was embarrassed. But then she noticed something.

“Fitz, is that Skye?” Jemma asked, slowing to a stop.

Fitz recognized the dress immediately.

“With… Mr. Ward?” He finished Jemma’s question. Jemma looked taken aback for about half a second, but then she laid into the horn with gusto. 

Skye and Mr. Ward sprang apart from each other like two startled cats. Skye recognized them first. Jemma was pointing through the windshield at her with a furious expression, like some sort of vengeful Italian grandmother. Ward fled into the darkness as Jemma rolled down the car windows again

“GET IN THE CAR!” Jemma demanded. Skye, not sure where Grant had run off to, obeyed.

“Oh my God Jemma” Skye said as she climbed into the back of the car. “You can’t tell anybody about this.” 

“The fuck I can’t!” Jemma said. “What an asshole!”

“Mr. Ward?” Fitz slowly repeated. 

“Jemma, you can’t! Seriously. He’ll get in trouble.” Skye repeated. 

“Ok! Everybody SHUT UP, please! Be quiet.” Jemma demanded. “I need to concentrate on driving.” The car slowly shuddered forward again. For a few moments the three of them sat in silence, staring blankly ahead at the world slowly passing by their windows. “Skye.” Jemma admitted, as they painfully creeped up to their first stoplight. “I have no idea where you live.” 

After dropping Skye off and slowly and carefully making her way over to Fitz’s house, Jemma could congratulate herself on not crashing a car and killing her friends on her first time driving. She parked in front of Fitz’s house and looked over at her friend with a tired sigh. His tuxedo was crumpled and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked like he hadn't slept in a year, and his foot tapped nervously.

“I’m so sorry.” He said, staring intensely at the dashboard rather than making eye contact with Jemma.

“How are you doing?” Jemma asked.

“I feel better. More calm.” He said. “I just feel tired.” 

"Good. But I meant… are you upset about Skye?” Jemma didn’t need to go to homecoming to know that being ditched by one’s date is not ideal. Less so if they ditched you to go make out with a teacher. 

“Oh.” Fitz said. In actuality he had spent the car ride freaking about over what he had told Jemma over the phone. Skye and Mr. Ward had been a weird but not overly concerning distraction. “It’s fine.” 

For a long moment the two of them sat together in silence. If Fitz stepped out of the car then, everything could go back to normal. Both of them could pretend that Fitz’s phone call had just been a side effect of the marijuana, and they could each slip comfortably back into what had been a very strong and mutually supportive friendship. Fitz and Jemma’s friendship was a bedrock foundation of both of their lives, neither of them could imagine themselves without the other. Any change to that bedrock risked the collapse of everything.

“Jemma?” Fitz asked, glancing up at her, looking more frightened than anything. It was tough for either of them to see one another's expressions in the darkness, they were each dimly lit in a kind of blue shadow. He didn’t make any move to open the car door.

“Oh, fuck it.” Jemma said, unbuckling her seatbelt. She leaned over towards Fitz, squinting her eyes at him as though he were a small, difficult to discern font. Fitz, not sure what to do, stared back at her in silence. Slowly and deliberately, Jemma put her hand up to the side of her friend's face, gently stroking his cheek. Fitz gave a small gasp. She had never touched him like that, and with his nerves, and possibly the residual effects of the brownie, each soft touch sent tingles throughout his entire body. With devastating slowness, Jemma leaned her face in towards Fitz's, still staring at him with an expression of concentration. Finally, she closed her eyes, and kissed him with exquisite caution. Fitz, recovering from the initial shock, kissed her back almost immediately, turning the almost childlike gentle kiss into something more. The way the car seats separated them made their position uncomfortable, but Jemma was surprised at how natural it felt to kiss Fitz. Even though there was a crick in her neck from her position, when she pulled back for a moment, and Fitz leaned in for another one, she found herself kissing back with enthusiasm. Eventually both of them pulled away from each other, Fitz’s hair a bit mussed, staring at each other like they’d never met before. 

“I should get home.” Jemma said, breathing a bit heavily.

“Right. Yeah.” Fitz said, getting out of the car, finally. He shut Jemma's car door as quietly as he could and scampered across the road to his house.

The whole place was dark when he unlocked the door and quietly made his way into his bedroom. His mother had left a little note on his bed with a candy bar.

“Hope you had fun!” It said, with his mother’s signature flower doodle she used when she signed family cards. Without removing his clothes, Fitz slowly lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling.

As Jemma pulled into her driveway, her porch light snapped on, illuminating the silhouettes of both of her parents.

“I’m so sorry.” Jemma said, as she got out of the car.

“INSIDE.” Her mother was so upset and choked up that she could hardly get that one word out. Her father looked exhausted, worried, and profoundly disappointed. Jemma took a deep breath and went inside to face the music.

“I’m grounded for the rest of the school year.” Jemma told Fitz as they walked, side by side to school on Monday, as they had so many hundreds of times before.

“I’m so sorry Jemma. I can’t believe you took the car. It was all my fault, tell them that. Tell them it was all my fault and you’re a heroine.” 

“They understand all that, they just think I should have told them and not taken the car by myself. Honestly I sort of agree with them.”

“So… they know about… the brownie?” Fitz whispered the last two words guiltily.

“I told them. They were strangely sympathetic about that.” Jemma was not aware of this, but once they were sure their daughter was out of range her parents had both laughed so hard they couldn't breathe about that. “I don’t think they’ll turn you in. I didn’t tell them about Mr. Ward, though, or… the other thing.” 

Fitz’s ears perked up at that, desperately grateful that she had brought it up and that they weren’t supposed to just pretend that nothing had happened.

“About the… other thing… how do you feel about it?” Fitz asked.

Jemma didn’t say anything for a few moments. She continued to walk forward without speaking, as though she were considering something very serious. Fitz started to sweat a little bit.

Tentatively, Jemma took Fitz’s hand. 

“I think I feel pretty good about it.” She said. Fitz stared at her, face turning red. He held on to the hand though. 

Vice Principal May was the only person who noticed Fitz and Jemma walking through the hallways of the school holding hands. She leaned into Coulson’s office.

“Hey Phil, look at our two little geniuses.” 

Phil peeked out the window just in time to see the two of them turning a corner. 

“Oh my god, are they in love?” He whispered.

“They’re holding hands.” May said. 

“I’m so PROUD of them!” Phil beamed like a mama hen. 

“Last I saw him he was at homecoming with another girl.” May said. “I’m not sure how this happened.”

“It’s High School May, this stuff happens all the time.” Principal Coulson clapped his hands in celebration, saw that some of the student aid office workers were giving him a funny look, coughed, and retreated back into his office. 

Skye was waiting for them in Study Hall, rapping her fingers on her desk and looking like she hadn’t slept at all that weekend. 

“Guys!” She whispered, voice even more deep and raspy than normal, but before she could get Fitz and Jemma to talk to her Mr. Ward came in.

“Hey everybody I’m gonna need butts in seats, NOW.” 

Jemma had to scurry over to her spot on the other side of the classroom, but she cast a number of evil expressions towards their teacher as she did so.

“Hey, Jemma, how was homecoming?” Trip whispered, his tone was apologetic and nervous. 

“Didn’t go, it sounded terrible though. You?” Jemma responded.

Trip’s night had had its own sort of homecoming drama, some guy had hooted at his date in a Barnes and Noble where they were killing time before the dance and he felt guilty for not like, challenging him to a fight or something. Then the strap on her dress broke and she’d spent the next hour and half in the ladies room trying to fix it, while he stood awkwardly at the edge of a circle of people he didn’t know who had no interest in including him with the conversation. He was well caught up with all of their gossip though. 

“Kinda sucked. You know.” He said. 

“For ONCE I want everybody in the class to actually BE QUIET and DO THEIR WORK.” Mr. Ward snapped. The low rumble of simultaneous conversations shifted into the general bustle of getting one’s work out and fidgeting in seats. 

Skye passed Fitz a note under his desk. 

“PLEASE don’t tell on us. Grant isn’t an asshole, he’s got a rough background, like us.” It said. 

Fitz wasn’t sure what to write back. 

“Don’t worry, it will be ok.” He wrote, although he had little confidence that things actually would be ok. 

At the end of study hall, when even Mr. Ward’s crankiness couldn’t stop people from whispering a little bit, Trip leaned over to Jemma.

“Hey, I just wanted to say I’m sorry if I was rude. I would have really liked to take you to homecoming. I hope we can still be friends.” He whispered.

Jemma smiled.

“God, I appreciate that.” She whispered back. “You weren’t rude, I just went a bit mad last week. I really value our friendship.”

Right as the bell rang Mr. Ward boomed out over the clatter of students getting up to leave,

“Can I talk with Skye, Leo, and Jemma at my desk please.”

“Holy shit.” Jemma whispered to Trip as he stood up to get his things together. “Is he going to do this?”

“Do what? What’s up? You in trouble?” Trip asked.

“I’ll tell you later.” Jemma responded, as the three students called by name approached his desk.

While everybody was moving around and not paying attention Grant Ward spoke in a soft but intense tone.

“I wanted to talk with you all to make sure you didn’t misinterpret anything about homecoming night. I had found Skye smoking, illegally, in the parking lot, and in a moment of weakness I joined her for a cigarette instead of turning her in. Skye could face very real consequences if this got back to Principal Coulson, and I know that all of you have Skye’s best interest in mind. I take full responsibility for making a bad decision, but I hope you guys will be responsible enough to understand that it’s not worth risking Skye getting expelled.”

“Expelled?” Skye asked.

“SMOKING?” Jemma responded. “That’s not what we saw, and you know it.” 

“Well I was also made aware of some other recreational drug use going on that evening.” Mr. Ward glared at Fitz right in the eye. “Which, if that ever came out, has some real consequences as well. Legal ones. I’d pity that person’s chances at valedictorian.” 

Fitz, who hadn’t said anything yet, blushed bright red.

“You’re disgusting.” Jemma whispered. 

“You don’t have a driver’s license, have a good time explaining where and how you saw what you think you saw.” 

“Grant!” Skye was stunned at his tone. Skye had never seen her class supervisor look the way that he did. He was hard as steel, like a completely different person from the kind, thoughtful man who would talk to her while she waited for her brother to pick her up. Who had met her at fast food places and chatted honestly about his life in a way adults never did. 

Jemma grabbed both Fitz and Skye’s arm and dragged them out of the classroom.

“What an asshole.” She whispered. 

“I’m so sorry.” Skye said. “I’ll talk to him, he’s probably just upset.” 

“Skye.” Jemma’s tone was miles away from the way she had spoken to Mr. Ward. She did her best to be gentle and kind. “I really hope you don’t. He’s what, 30 years old? What makes him so unattractive to women his own age that he has to go to high schoolers? Or what about high schoolers is so attractive to him? It’s a power thing, and that’s always bad.” 

“I’m not an idiot. He’s not like that.” Skye insisted. 

“Skye.” Jemma took her hands. “I don’t care if I get arrested for stealing my mum’s car. I’m going to report him. He shouldn’t be in a school.” 

“You think Grant’s an abusive power guy?! What the fuck do you know about abusive dudes?” Skye asked, “Huh? I’ve been to your house! It’s like a fucking Campbell’s soup ad! It’s like I get it, you’re well adjusted, get out of my face.” The hallways were still crowded, and Skye was speaking lowly but her anger filled tone was starting to attract a little bit of attention.

“Skye…” Fitz said.

“Fitz fucking knows. Fitz’s dad’s an abusive fuckhead. I’ve been in 8 foster homes. Grant’s not like that, he knows what it’s like to be abused.”

Jemma held her bag closer to herself, uncomfortable.

“Don’t act like you know shit Jemma, because you DO NOT.” The last bit of the sentence got a bit loud, and people actually turned and looked. Skye stormed off.

“You all right?” Fitz asked Jemma with no hesitation, reaching for her hand. Jemma, surprised at how natural it felt, took it gratefully,

“I’m fine.” She said. Skye’s words stung, but one of the most unfair aspects of Jemma’s extremely wholesome upbringing was that it did actually prepare her for moments like this. “Ward is really an asshole though.”

“Maybe not! Maybe it’s like Skye says and he’s quite nice and he really likes her.” 

Jemma smiled sort of sadly at Fitz. His stubborn capacity to have absolute faith in the good in people was one of the things she most admired about him. She was more of a skeptic, and in some cases it served her better.

She absently brushed back a stray curl on his forehead, and Fitz almost died of happiness. 

“FitzSimmons?” Bobbi Morse called out, appearing at Jemma’s side. The two nerds jumped away from each other guiltily. 

“Gotta go to class!” They both said, simultaneously, and sped off, with maximum suspiciousness. 

After school, Skye waited for Ward at their normal spot, the parking lot behind the McDonalds. She smiled at him apologetically when she saw him get out of his car, but his expression stayed cold.

“Hey, thanks for answering my texts.” Skye said, with real gratitude.

“What did that Simmons girl say?” He asked.

“Fitz has got her to calm down, she’s not going to tell anybody for a little while. I’m going to talk her out of it.” 

“Jesus Christ.” Ward looked really upset, his hard face softened into one of worry and anger. “I need this job, Skye, I told you how important this job is to me.” 

“I know!” Skye rubbed Ward’s shoulder. He had told her how his parents had a lot of money but wouldn’t give it to any of their sons, because his older brother was such an asshole and they all lived in fear of him. This job had been the first time in his adult life he’d been able to support himself in an apartment. “Everything’s going to be ok.” She reassured him.

“You don’t know, though.” Ward said, snappily. “You don’t know or you wouldn’t have kissed me ten feet from a school function.”

Skye’s initial reaction was guilt, she wanted to apologize to Ward so much for being so stupid and putting his apartment and his hard earned independence in jeopardy. She couldn’t believe she had been so stupid. But just as she was about to apologize, Jemma’s words about power came back to her, she paused.

“Well, you kissed me back.” Skye whispered, surprised that she hadn’t thought of that before. She didn’t add you asked me out to her accusation, but it occurred to her and she held it in her mind, as a sort of beacon of clarity and truth.

“That’s unfair and you know it.” Ward said, rolling his eyes. “How can you even say that? I could lose my job.”

Skye kept her mouth shut, because she knew if she said anything else it would just make him more mad. But alongside the truth that he had been the one to ask her out, which made him just as culpable for losing his job over this, now stood the truth that she also faced expulsion and getting kicked out of yet another foster home over this, a fact which now seemed strangely irrelevant to Grant Ward. Like her side of the relationship didn’t matter. She knew that if she tore her hair out in apology and agreed with everything he said for the next hour or so thing would go back to normal and spare her a lot of hassle, but was it worth it?

“I’m going to go home.” Skye said. “It’s too risky to be here. We could get spotted.”

“Wish you’d cared about that a little earlier.” Ward snapped again.

Skye was already in her car. “Holy shit.” She whispered, watching as Grant Ward, now a complete stranger to her, slammed his car door with unnecessary force and turned the key in the ignition. Grant Ward was an abusive piece of garbage, and he had tricked her into thinking he was a really good guy.

She picked up her phone and texted Fitz.

“Hey, do you have Jemma’s number?”

“Depends, are you going to shout at her?” Fitz responded.

Skye shook her head that Fitz would try to pretend he didn’t have Jemma’s number, even for obvious purposes of argument. 

“Nope. She’s right. We’ve got to turn this guy in.” 

The next morning Vice Principal May was surprised to find three students in her office before she had arrived at work, at about 6:30am. 

“Oh god, are any of you going to cry again?” May asked, nervously, putting her leather jacket on a hook. 

“Mr. Grant Ward has been trying to date Skye, and needs to go.” Jemma Simmons said, matter of factly. 

May went from sleepily joking to dead serious in less than a minute. After carefully getting everyone’s version of events, she reported the situation as she understood it to Principal Coulson, minutes after he turned up at the office.

Phil Coulson, dressed in a wrinkled suit and square glasses, emerged from his office with deep circles under his eyes and expression of concern. 

“Skye, can I talk with you alone for moment?” He asked. 

“Why?” Jemma asked, protectively.

“No, it’s cool.” Skye agreed.

Just like at the beginning of the school year, Skye found herself seated opposite the principal in his sad, windowless, yellow office. 

“Skye can I ask you how and when your interactions with Mr. Ward became uncomfortable?” 

“I…” Skye blushed. “Look, it wasn’t that he made me uncomfortable exactly, I was kind of uh… flattered. He would find me after school and talk to me. He was really nice. Most teachers aren’t super nice to me. He said I was funny and smart.”

“You are funny and smart, Skye.” Mr. Coulson said, eyes scanning some paperwork and a file in front of him. “Sorry. Go on.”

“Anyway, one time when my brother texted me that he was going to be late, again, Grant… uh, Mr. Ward said he’d drive me home. And, I don’t know, I guess there was kind of a tension. We ended up going out for a snack. He gave me his phone number in case I needed any more rides. It happened a lot. We started texting just to chat. Eventually he kissed me.” It had been extremely romantic, Skye remembered, she felt an electric tingle all down her spine to her fingertips at every touch. 

“When was this?”

“I don’t know, late September?” Skye answered. “Why?”

Agent Coulson toyed with the file on his desk. There was a report in it, filed by Grant Ward on September 15, announcing that one of his students, namely, Mary Sue Poots/Skye appeared to be harboring romantic feelings for him, and had been coming on pretty strong. He had said he wanted to report it early, just to be wholly professional in case things got out of hand or false reports were made. 

“I believe you, Skye.” Mr. Coulson said, meeting Skye’s eyes directly. “I’m taking all three of you out of that study hall, right away.” 

“Is that it? Isn’t he supposed to get fired or something?” 

“I’m going to keep an extremely close eye on Mr. Ward, but these cases are ugly. I’m so sorry Skye.” 

Skye’s optimistic expression darkened as she realized what Coulson was saying. This was far from the first time that an adult in a position of authority had let her down. But she’d liked Coulson. He’d seemed all right. 

“Yeah, ok, whatever. I’m supposed to be going to that study hall right now.” Skye pointed out. “Where do I go now?” 

“You three can stay in May’s office until second period. We’ll see what we can do with your schedules.” 

When Skye walked back into May’s office, Fitz and Jemma looked up at her with nervous, expectant faces. She looked very much like a nervous kid as she shrugged back at them, stuffing her hands in her pockets. 

May looked over at Phil. When she saw his despondent expression her frown set. Once the kids were out of her office and Coulson was back doing his principal work, she pulled out her cell phone. No texts from Grant. After dinner last weekend, when he’d spent the night at her place, he’d told her that he’d text her about plans for the next week, and had been sending her little emoji stories all week. It had been cute. She’d smiled to herself about it.

Her mother had always told her that all men ever do is let you down, but she had always considered that to be a bitter exaggeration. Now she started to see the wisdom in it. 

Grant Ward was gonna get fucking wrecked. 

A few weeks later, Fitz and Simmons were informed that they could no longer spend the first forty minutes of class in the library, they had to return to their study hall. Jemma was going to break some school board doors down, until Vice Principal May personally informed them that she was going to take over supervising the class until they had a reasonable replacement. Mr. Ward was no longer at the school district, and she was not at liberty to give out any more information.

Jemma, Fitz, and Skye decided amongst themselves that May had killed him, and it was probably best not to ask any more questions about it. Every once in a while Skye would feel a sick cold feeling of dread and guilt about the whole thing in the pit of her stomach, but Jemma did a pretty good job of reassuring her that she hadn’t gotten Mr. Ward fired. HE HAD GOTTEN HIMSELF GODDAMN FIRED. And possibly killed, but that was neither here nor there.

Of course, that meant that Fitz and Jemma were still stuck in their useless study hall. Jemma enjoyed it if only for some extra knitting time, and vice principal May was more lenient about letting students chat as long as they kept their voices down and didn’t curse. Jemma and Trip got to be good friends. 

Skye got out of study hall once a week, Principal Coulson gave her a standing 40 minute session with the school guidance counselor on Wednesdays. At first she thought it was even more of a waste of time than crossword puzzles, but eventually she started to look forward to her sessions. Her grades went up, and she was a huge asset to the Science Olympiad team.

It took another two weeks for Fitz and Jemma to finally actually schedule a time to practice “Write it, Do it.” Jemma typed furiously on her computer, trying to finish a clear and completable set of instructions within her twenty minute time allotment. Fitz lay flat on his back on Jemma’s bed, checking out the celebrities Jemma had pasted all over the place. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was up there right alongside Joe Mangianello and Emma Thompson, so Jemma’s tastes were kind of hard to pin down. 

They’d been dating for about a month now, but they hadn’t officially told anyone yet. Bobbi would have figured it out, probably, but she and Hunter were in another one of their fighting spells and so she was distracted. Mr. Mackenzie was so used to the two of them being constantly together that he hadn’t quite figured out what had changed about their relationship. Fitz knew though. They kissed sometimes now, and it was fucking brilliant.

“DONE!” Jemma announced at a triumphant and obnoxious volume, making Fitz jump.

“Good lord, Jemma!” He whined as he pulled himself upright. “Do you mind? You’ve just taken 20 years off my life!”

“Nonsense.” Jemma pushed Fitz over to the desk with all of the materials on it that he would need, and slammed the printout instruction sheet in front of him. 

“The timer?” He asked, but she had already set it on her phone. 

“GO!” She said, and flopped backwards onto the bed, to observe how well Fitz picked up her instructions.

As ever, Jemma’s instructions were clear and precise. Fitz had done this event with some of the other kids on the team before, and they always tried to put too much information in there, which led to ambiguous sentences and confusing instructions. Jemma had a gift for self editing. She was very to the point. He followed her step by step instructions to the letter up until he reached instruction number 8. He’d just screwed the largest bolt into the side of the pipe, as he had been instructed, when he saw that the next step was “Kiss your brilliant and attractive girlfriend.” 

Fitz blushed and buried his head in his hands. Jemma cackled from her spot on the bed behind him. 

“You’re ridiculous.” He said, slowly rotating her desk chair around to where she was lying on the bed, absolutely delighted with her own joke.

“Excuse me, I didn’t write ‘insult your brilliant and attractive girlfriend’ did I?” 

Fitz rolled his eyes at the cheesiness of this stunt, but it wasn’t like he was going to turn this opportunity down. He grinned and jumped onto the bed next to her, pulling her in for a kiss, which she giggled through.

“You’re wonderful.” Fitz whispered.

“Oh gosh.” Jemma sighed, and kissed him back, pulling him in close and entwining her legs with his. Just when things were starting to get a bit less innocent, Jemma's bedroom door swung open with a bang and Jemma's parents walked in, chatting happily, with two glasses of Ribena for the studious youths. Until they saw what was happening, that is. 

Fitz and Jemma sprang away from each other, guilty as hell, hair mussed, both rushing to sit upright on the bed on opposite sides as though nothing had happened. 

Mrs. Simmon’s jaw dropped, and she nearly dropped the drinks.

“WHAT!?” She asked. 

“Everything’s fine!” Jemma said, blushing so red she could be a turnip and frantically buttoning her blouse. “Erm, I’m dating Fitz now.” She gestured over at him, now standing awkwardly on the other side of the room. He was so embarrassed he had basically ascended into another dimension. 

Mr. Simmons put a comforting arm around his wife, who was still staring aghast at her precious little baby girl. 

“Darling." He whispered, "You owe me ten dollars.”

"No!" She gasped and glared up at her husband. 

“What?” Jemma asked, completely lost.

“I’ll tell you later.” Mr. Simmons said with a wink. “Fitz, son, I’m sorry but I’m going to have to ask you to go home while we talk this out. And uh, no more closed bedroom doors all right?” 

Fitz was halfway out of the room before Mr. Simmons had finished the sentence. He glanced back at Jemma and gave her a ‘good luck’ wave. She smiled at him, still bright red, covering her face in embarrassment. Fitz grinned as he snuck down the hallway. 

All in all, things could be worse.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well friends, thank you so much for sticking around and commenting through these eight weeks of posting. I needed something to get me through the hiatus between seasons, and I hope you enjoyed my silly romantic comedy. Again, thank you so much for your kudos and comments!! Any time I see I have a comment notification it makes my whole damn day.
> 
> I have some other projects in the works right now, so if you are interested in more Fitzsimmons shipping content keep an eye out in the next few weeks. Again, thank you, you all are the best. :)


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